


everywhere and always (we're skybound)

by Stratisphyre



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Additional content warnings listed at the beginning of each chapter, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Doctor/River Song - Freeform, Episodic Narrative, Implied Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswald, Multi, Romance, Slow Burn, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 117,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25671928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stratisphyre/pseuds/Stratisphyre
Summary: "Eventually I’m going to have to hand myself over to Gallifrey, and I despise the thought of doing it when he’s still alone."Unable to bear leaving the Doctor to his own devices, Clara finds him new  (old) companions. As Rose, John and the Doctor navigate a their way towards (a very new) normal, another spectre rises from the past.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 103
Kudos: 85





	1. Meetings and Partings

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to Arynphallia for audiencing. This work is so much better because of all your quality feedback.
> 
> Individual warnings will be added to the beginnings of each chapter.

_Now_

The towering monstrosity had been built up along St. Mary's Axe, beside the Gherkin, practically overnight. Owned and managed by business magnate Corbett Harrington, the building played host to the headquarters for Harrington’s own corporation, innumerable leased office spaces and, according to their sources, something significantly more dangerous.

“What do you think?” John asked her, craning his neck to take in the full spectacle of the building before them. If one had an eye for phallic architecture, they might accuse it of boasting surprising similarities to certain parts of Menopterran anatomy. 

“I think anyone who’s gone to a bed with a Menoptera is going to lose it,” Rose replied.

John grinned, and opened the door for her.

The ground floor enjoyed an ultra-modern aesthetic; all chrome and glass, and a suspended sculpture of what John suspected was supposed to be an abstract interpretation of a caryatid, but in truth came off as yet another unfortunate genital configuration. This time, at least, they’d done the Foamasi justice, though if it’d been based on a model, they were going to want to get those lumps examined.

Inside, a single woman with her hair pulled back into a severe bun occupied the lone seat at an unnecessarily expansive receptionist’s desk at the other end of the lobby. She watched their progress across the slippery black porcelain tiles with the resigned disenfranchisement of administrative assistants everywhere.

“How may I direct you?” she asked in an annoyed drawl, unenthused at being interrupted. Her glasses reflected the in-progress game of minesweeper on her computer screen; John hated being interrupted when playing Minecraft as well.

Rose whipped out her credentials, and offered them for examination with approximately a tenth of the smugness John would’ve employed. Her lips twitched and he dialed his estimate down to an eighth.

“Torchwood,” the woman said, faintly.

“We need access to Mr. Harrington’s office, if you please,” Rose told her.

“Oh, but Mr. Harrington isn’t in.”

“Even better.” Rose’s sweet smile did little to hide the implacability in her eyes.

Three minutes later, one of the building’s security officers arrived to lead them back through to the office. If John wasn’t mistaken, the receptionist called Harrington to advise him about their arrival the moment they'd turned away from her desk. Which, as it happened, aligned exactly with their plans.

While John had been expecting them to be led to the bank of elevators, they were shuffled through another two security checkpoints—Rose declined to surrender her sidearm, John surprised the small collection of guards by informing them he never carried one—and shown into an office which took up more than half of the first floor’s generous square footage.

“Don’t most CEOs prefer a penthouse view?” Rose asked the security officer who’d accompanied them. The man, a harried fifty-something with a name badge which read ‘Jefferson,’ shrugged.

“Couldn’t say, ma’am.”

“Maybe he’s afraid of heights,” John muttered, crossing to Harrington’s desk. There weren’t many knick-knacks, or personal items. A single small bust of Harrington’s head—the arrogant so and so—but no photographs or diary. Nothing suggesting anything other than a showroom meant to impress. ‘This too, could be your office, for a monthly payment of a mere ten thousand quid!’ 

John whipped out his sonic and began scanning the walls.

“We’ll call if we need anything further,” Rose told Jefferson, ushering him out with nothing more than the power of her voice.

“There’s an expanse back here I never noticed on the building plans,” John said, pausing as his sonic trilled helpfully. “I’d say a small room, maybe seven feet wide.” He tapped the wall. “No sign of how to get in.”

“Not the handsomest bloke, is he?” Rose muttered, regarding the bust with a keen eye. 

John straightened when the man of the hour slid in through the door. “Worse in person, I’d say.”

Rose turned, and they regarded Harrington with identically unimpressed expressions. Harrington’s shoddy shimmer gave the impression he’d mistakenly chosen burlap instead of skin when he’d settled on a disguise, and it loosely hung off his bones, drooping and unpleasant as half-melted clay.

“Couldn’t be arsed to pay more a few quid for the shimmer, eh?” Rose asked.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my office?” Harrington demanded.

“Agents Tyler and Tyler, Torchwood,” John offered. By the unpleasant twitch to Harrington’s eye, their reputations had preceded them. “And you, Mr. Harrington, have been very naughty.”

“You know, when the floating drift tube klystron went missing from Holland, we were understandably annoyed. They’re not easy to come by. And when the liquid argon calorimeter disappeared out of New York, we figured it toddled off on its own. But once that experimental microprocessor went astray? The only one in the world capable of calculating certain variables in less than a nanosecond?” Rose tutted. “Added to a few more easily acquired bits and bobs, it’s everything one needs to build a mass spec particle collider.”

“And what, pray tell, would anyone need with their own, personal mass spec particle collider, you ask? Especially when the person in question has a reputation for solar system realignment? Well, we can only speculate, which is why we’re here,” John continued.

“We aren’t fans of speculation, Mr. Harrington,” Rose informed him.

“Not a wit,” John agreed.

“Now why don’t you tell us exactly what you plan to do with it?”

Harrington sputtered, and made a reasonably terrible approximation of indignance. “I am a member of the Fomorthian Council. I’m not answerable to human authority.”

“Somehow, I figured he’d bring it up,” John said to Rose.

Rose inclined her head. “I suspected.”

“What a wonderful coincidence I happen to have this.” John pulled a thin leather document wallet out of his pocket and waved it in front of Harrington’s face.

Had Harrington been human, all the blood would’ve drained from his face. His pupils flickered instead, and his ears flushed purple. The shabby appearance hadn’t been the only cost-cutting he’d done with the shimmer.

“You’ve been sent on Council authority,” Harrington obediently repeated. “But I have their approval to move forward with the redevelopment. This planet isn’t even protected under the galactic zoning laws!”

“Perhaps not, but there are a fair few allies who have settled here, and take exception to their home being leveled to make room for a cupcake shoppe. The Council happens to be more scared of them than inspired by you. Now then, if you’d be so kind as to point us towards the particle collider—”

“You don’t understand. I’m on my way back home. The collider has already started the process.”

John’s gut clenched. “What.”

“It takes a substantial amount of energy to create a black hole. It will take weeks to build up the necessary reserves. It’s all automated.”

“Where is the device?” Rose demanded.

Harrington pointed down. “Under this building.”

“Of course it’s beneath London,” John hissed. “I’m surprised you types don’t all trip over each other while you’re setting things up down there.”

Rose began shouting orders into her phone, ordering the evacuation of everyone within ten city blocks. Thousands of people who needed to get out, in case things went poorly.

Then again, if things went poorly, more than ten city blocks’ worth of people would be in trouble.

“How do we get down there?” Rose demanded.

Harrington regarded her closely. Then he chuckled. A thin, reedy sound which quickly transformed into a full-bellied laugh. He shook his hands at them, waving until he’d managed to catch a breath and compose himself. “You’re going to try and, what, turn it off? It’s creating a black hole. How do you think you’ll manage?”

“With style,” John replied.

“Here,” Rose said, grabbing at the bust. She pushed at its head, and the otherwise solid marble bent back on a hidden hinge, revealing a pair of buttons. “Will it take us down?”

Harrington, still quivering with humour, nodded his head. “Not as if it matters.”

Rose hit the larger of the two buttons. The space John had discovered opened to reveal a lift.

“And you couldn't plunk whatever monstrosity you’ve got planned on the opposite end of our orbital rotation?” John demanded.

“ _Ideal location_.” He glowered. “You won’t ruin this for me.”

He reached into a pocket, but before he could do more than twitch, Rose withdrew her sidearm and leveled it at him with the barest flick of her wrist.

“Relax, Torchwood. It’s simply my mobile.”

“What, are you going to call your solicitor?” she demanded.

“No.” He pushed in a long string of numbers, and before either John or Rose could twitch in his direction, a small explosion shook the room. The sound of snapping cables yanked John’s attention towards the lift, and he watched wide-eyed as it plummeted down the shaft.

The bastard barely had a moment to blink before he hit the ground, unconscious.

“Dammit,” Rose cursed, reholstering her sidearm. She closed the distance to the shaft to inspect things and, with pursed lips, grabbed a small torch from her pocket and let it fall. Each moment it spent falling instead of hitting the bottom ratcheted up the sour feeling in John’s stomach, until they lost sight of it in the darkness.

She jerked her head at John. “Secure him. I’m heading down.”

“Not without me you’re not,” John replied.

They regarded each other, equally stubborn, until she huffed in defeat and John yanked off his suit jacket with a grin.

“Scandalous, Agent Tyler,” Rose chuckled.

“Watch this, then, Agent Tyler.” John rolled up the sleeves of his jumper, showing off his forearms.

Rose responded with another delighted peal of laughter. “Shocking. You’ll be showing off a bit of ankle, next.”

John gasped with mock affront. “How could you consider such a thing? Impugning my modesty, you are.” He opened his messenger bag. Careful not to jostle around the more precious of its contents, he whipped out four enormous coils of rope and their rappelling gear. There were a few things he never left home without; his sonic, his messenger bag, and, most days, Rose. His messenger bag happened to have a few other odds and ends he’d deemed necessary to carry along with him since commencing his work for Torchwood.

He and Rose set things up with practiced efficiency, easily strapping on equipment they’d used hundreds of times over the years. Before they hooked into the lift’s internal beams and structures, John grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles. 

Five minutes later, they were still making their way down the perilously long shaft. They took it slow; halfway down and they couldn’t see the torch, and the shattered lift waiting for them at the bottom wasn’t inspiring the desire to be reckless.

“This has to go down at least five hundred feet,” Rose muttered as they descended.

“Seven hundred and sixty-two, I’d say,” John guessed. “Defies thought, how they got all the parts down here using such a tiny lift.”

“Slowly,” Rose replied, her tongue tucking itself between her teeth in a cheeky smile.

When they finally reached the bottom of the shaft, carefully maneuvering around the jagged remnants of the lift, John regretted having taken off his jacket. It was at least ten degrees cooler—not surprising, considering Formorthia physiology, but far from comfortable for himself and Rose—and they finally put eyes on the particle collider.

The sub-basement itself stretched more than twice the size of the Tyler mansion, and the immense device easily took up seventy-five percent of the space.

As John slipped out of his repelling gear, Rose beat him to it, her sonic already in hand. The small pink crystal at the tip flickered in diagnosis, and she frowned at the results.

“Ninety-nine percent away from gathering the power it needs to create the black hole,” she confirmed. It came as little relief to either of them. 

“One percent of the way is still too close for comfort,” John replied, grimly. 

“There’s no way to safely disable this. Unless I’ve forgotten something?” Her voice quivered a touch, desperately hoping she’d overlooked an angle.

John’s arm dropped, his own sonic hanging loosely at his side, barely held in place with trembling fingertips. “You’ve never missed a trick, Rose Tyler.” One percent wouldn't destroy the world. Or London, either, consider how far down they’d gotten. But it would absolutely collapse the space in which the collider had been built, and bring the entire building down. And it would happen quick enough there wouldn’t be near enough time for them to escape.

She checked her phone and shook her head. No signal, then. No way out. And they couldn’t let it get anymore powerful. Not when every moment meant a greater range of destruction when they deactivated it.

The moment Harrington had destroyed the lift had turned this operation into a one-way trip for both of them. Rose must’ve guessed the same. No wonder she’d suggested he stay back up top, his ridiculous, radiant Rose.

Rose took a steadying breath. “Together, then?”

“Together.” He tossed his sonic into his other hand to grab hers, twining their fingers together.

They aimed their screwdrivers at the particle collider. It roared viciously a moment before sputtering out a mechanical cough and shuddering with enough force to send them both stumbling.

“We’re far enough down the ground will absorb most of it,” John said, mostly to himself. Partly to Rose. To reassure her they’d saved the people who’d unwittingly set up shop above this monstrosity. Hopefully the rest of their team had time to get the people out of the building. Harrington would be dragged into custody, and the Formorthians were going to have to deal with the rest of the galactic community that’d set up on Earth, presumably never to trespass again. 

Shame they wouldn’t be around to see it.

Rose nodded. “Gonna be one bloody good party upstairs.”

She turned to him as the collider began buzzing with an unhealthy hum. Nearly time. He could see it in her eyes. There weren’t going to be any takebacks. No last minute chances. No saving throws, as Tony would say. Instead, a properly explosive end to their lives together.

“Rose Tyler,” John whispered, wrapping his lanky arms around her. “I love you.”

She grabbed on as tight as she could. “I love you too, John.”

“There’s not a moment I regret,” he continued quickly, his words scrambling over one another to escape his mouth. “Everything that brought us here. I wouldn’t change it. Not for anything” He pressed frantic lips against her forehead. “You’re the most important person in the universe.”

“Your universe,” Rose corrected, fighting back tears.

“ _The_ universe,” he insisted. “This one, and the last one. All of them.” He shoved their mouths together in a desperate facsimile of their usual passion. “Each and every one.”

The rumbling increased in frequency. Any moment, now.

She tightened her arms around his waist. “It’s the same for me. No matter what. I’ll always run with you.”

A sudden familiar vworping sound of a wheezing transdimensional engine’s dematerialization sequence overwhelmed the sound of the alarm. They both started, eyes widening as they whipped round in unison.

“Did you mean it?” John asked.

“ _Run_ ,” Rose gasped in response.

* * *

_Approximately ten hours (and a parallel universe) ago_

“You’ve been distracted,” Ashildr—Lady Me—Meshildr?—commented mildly over the console.

Clara hummed. Distractedly.

Ashildr rolled her eyes, the same expression she made every time she debated poking out into the diner to make herself an egg cream in order to escape Clara. Bless their TARDIS and its incredible dedication to maintaining authenticity. 

Before she could get more than a couple of steps, Clara called her back. “I’m worried about him,” she finally admitted.

Ashildr didn’t roll her eyes again, but probably only because she hated repeating herself. Clara admired the dedication to personal improvement. “No, really?”

Clara shrugged. “Can’t help it. Eventually I’m going to have to hand myself over to Gallifrey, and I despise the thought of doing it when he’s still _alone_.” The cursed word made her shiver helplessly.

The absolute truth of it, more than even ‘the Doctor lies’—was the Doctor was rubbish on his own. She couldn’t remember much of the time spent poking about in his timestream, but she understood it for truth. Being alone led to increasingly stupendous levels of stupidity. He needed someone to keep him anchored. She’d loved considering herself his peer, and fancied he felt the same way. But despite all the responsibility which came alongside such a privilege, she’d lost the ability to ground him in the way he deserved. Their free-floating between adventures had been what led to their end. The Doctor required a tether to his own self and the worlds he’d sworn to protect.

“What do you want to do, then?” Ashildr asked.

“I’ve no idea.”

“You can’t go back to him. Even if you could restore his memory of you, you’d be stuck in the exact same situation as before.”

Clara hummed in agreement. She’d rather hoped, when she’d selfishly returned to say goodbye, he’d recognize her, even for a single moment. She still couldn't say if she’d been more relieved or disappointed when he hadn’t.

“Take what you don’t know and what you _do_ know and figure it out.”

Clara glowered at the console, in lieu of scowling at Ashildr. Generally, they suited each other surprisingly well; as far as travelling partners went, Clara couldn’t complain. Scrupulously neat, Ashildr kept to herself when she sensed Clara needed time alone—which had been more frequent in the initial days of their journey together, the need for solitude tapering off around their second decade together—and willingly accompanied Clara on whatever scheme she concocted to stretch out her borrowed time a few moments longer.

They were coming to the end of their stolen time. Clara sensed it in the anxious vice tightening against her ribcage, increasingly insistent. She’d have to return to Gallifrey sooner than later. But she couldn’t bring herself to submit while he existed in the wide universe all on his own. Stupidity aside, she wanted the Doctor to be happy. He richly deserved it. More than any other being who'd ever lived.

“What I know is his timeline,” Clara murmured. While she'd she’d traipsed through his past in order to keep him safe, the auguries of his future still twisted up unrecognizably in her mind. “What I don’t know is how to make him accept someone new.” There were probably millions of brilliant ingenues between the ages of nineteen and thirty who’d never realize they were waiting for the Doctor to appear and sweep them off to adventure; but she could describe with certainty how he’d react to the perception of being handled, and there was every chance he’d leave them stranded on a random roadside out of sheer bloody-minded pettiness.

The blistering memory of a frozen-over pond nipped through her mind, there and gone as quickly as one might think upon a dream and lose it the same moment.

“Does it have to be?” Ashildr asked. “Someone new, I mean. There’s not anyone from his past we could scoop up and dump in his lap?”

Clara’s lips pursed as she considered the (not all together terrible) prospect. There’d been plenty of previous companions she might choose from, and yet. How many of them would she truly trust to be the person the Doctor needed? Especially when considering his unspoken credo to never look back. 

If she’d truly been born to save him, there should be a way to save him from himself. With no small amount of focus—and, no, it did not make her eyes cross when she tried, ta very much Ashildr—she could vividly picture the Doctor’s timeline. Not only where her echoes had crisscrossed their way through it, but its infinite stretch into the small eternity he’d composed for himself and those remarkable individuals he touched. She could see the places where his life intersected with others; those whose lines seemed to barely graze against his, and ones who lasted by his side for much, much longer.

She’d seen one lengthy thread interwoven with his. For a long while, she’d wondered if it belonged to River. But even their intricately intertwined lattice of timestreams couldn’t last forever, despite what Clara confidently believed to be River’s best efforts. Another sliver wound itself around the Doctor's before abruptly cutting away. It then reappeared for the meagerest heartsbeat before shooting off in a wildly different direction, fated to run divergent from the Doctor’s for the rest of his ancient life.

More than anything else she could recall about the timestream, _this thread_ at _this moment_ struck her as important.

Or, at least, she wanted to believe it was.

When she opened her eyes again—blinking away the _distinctly not cross-eyed_ sensation of having meditated upon the Doctor’s infinity—the door separating their cockpit from the diner was ajar. Peering through it she spotted Ashildr whipping up crepes. Not wholly authentic, but they’d mutually decided American-style pancakes weren’t for them.

Clara crossed to the bar and collapsed into one of their high stools. She only had to wait a moment before a stack of crepes filled with strawberries and chocolate spread were placed in front of her.

“Well?” Ashildr leaned against the counter, sipping at a malted milk.

“When Gallifrey returned, the walls separating the universes became more porous,” Clara began. 

Ashildr grinned in anticipation.

* * *

_Now_

It wasn’t their TARDIS.

Well, technically speaking, _their_ TARDIS only stretched the length of John’s forearm and was currently settled in her tank, secured for travel in John’s suspiciously spacious messenger bag.

It wasn’t their _original_ TARDIS. This TARDIS opened up into a functional, albeit empty, American diner, and felt distinctly more masculine in Rose's mind than both the Doctor’s TARDIS, and the infant coral growing under their care. When they stumbled in the door, which snapped shut immediately behind them and took off with a not-exactly-panicked whirring of engines, they’d both froze. Rose believed they’d find themselves back in front of their own console, the Doctor standing proudly before them and willing to explain why their ship had spectacularly transformed in their absence.

“Is. This.” John stopped and flapped his mouth a few times, managing to correctly articulate a string of silent question marks.

“It can’t be,” Rose replied. She tightened her grasp on his fingers. “Do you want to sit?”

“Not really.”

She nodded, peering at the nearby jukebox. The same song occupied each slot: “Break on Through” by the Doors. This TARDIS had a sense of humour.

The diner lurched to the side, and John grabbed hold of Rose’s waist to steady himself as she caught hold of the nearby Formica countertop. He braced himself around her, clutching close as the TARDIS shuddered its way through dematerialization. It vibrated into her very marrow until she thought her bones would shake right out of her skin.

Things finally settled into the neutral hum she’d always associated with travel through the vortex; smooth sailing, as the Doctor called it. Usually right before unexpected tragedy.

Finally, the doors to what she’d assumed led to the kitchen swung open, and a slim brunette poked her head through, her enormous doe eyes and absurdly adorable button nose reminding Rose of a Disney princess.

“Oh, good. You got in. Sorry—we were focused on nipping in and out and hadn’t time to come greet you.”

Another brunette, even younger in face despite eyes which resembled the Doctor’s more closely than anyone else Rose had ever met, joined them. “We’re back through.”

“Lovely.” The first girl turned her gigantic cartoon eyes back to them. “I’m Clara, and this is Lady Me. We thought you could use a helping hand.”

“Thank you?” Rose said, uncertain. Back through what? 

John frowned at them. “Are you… Time Ladies?”

They exchanged a nearly-unreadable glance, though Rose picked up on warring uncertainty, excitement, and not small amount of guilt.

“No.” “Not exactly.” They tripped over each other.

“How does one come to pilot a TARDIS if one is ‘not exactly’ a Time Lord?” John demanded. He stared at her. “And why are you so familiar?”

Clara peered at him. “Oh! I hadn’t recognized you without pinstripes.”

John blinked and glanced down at his grey waistcoat and maroon v-neck jumper; Rose couldn’t resist an appreciative onceover herself, a selfish moment she took for herself despite other pressing matters at hand.

“It’s a good look,” Clara assured him.

“Good looks aside, you haven’t answered his question,” Rose pointed out.

Clara smiled. If she meant meant to be sheepish, too much mirth lingered in the corners of her mouth to truly pass. “It’s on loan.”

“On loan,” John repeated flatly.

“From who?” Rose asked.

“Long story. Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll whip us up some proper milkshakes.”

Resigned, Rose slid into one of the booths. They had nowhere to go if they hated her answers. Their own infant TARDIS couldn’t manage to get them more than about a foot from point of origin before tiring herself out, poor baby.

John crowded her in, keeping himself firmly between her and their hosts. His eyes never strayed far from Clara, obviously attempting to recontextualize her and figure out where he’d seen her before. Rose could feel the frustration nagging at the back of his mind, and tried to focus herself into the point of contact where their hands remained clasped together. Their weak telepathic connection, which shocked both of them when it sprang into place, improved when they touched and strengthened by the scarcest psychic millimetre every day.

Clara had barely settled a few glasses down on the table—all of them smelling strongly of brandy—when John jumped up. Or, at least, attempted to jump up before colliding with the back of the booth and slipping back down into his place. “You. Your face. It’s faceness. It’s so…”

“Facey?” Lady Me muttered sarcastically from behind the counter.

“Familiar,” Clara concluded. “Yes. I’ve been in your timestream, Doctor. I’m surprised you remember. I don’t think I had much to do with this regeneration of you.”

“You hadn’t, no. But I never forget a face.”

The words made Clara’s mouth twist into sad half-amusement. “So you think.” She leaned forward and took a sip of her own pink and blue concoction.

“I’m not the Doctor,” John informed her, brow creased as he muddled over her words. “I’m John. John Tyler.”

Clara smiled. “Congratulations.”

“You’re from our home dimension,” Rose whispered, eyes stuck to a photograph on the wall. As many of the others in the diner, the sepia-toned antique depicted a scene from history. Unlike anything from their adopted universe, however, this one portrayed the two men standing before the _Wright Flyer_ without a dirigible in sight.

“Yes.” Clara leaned across the table. “I’m sorry to say this, but you’ve both just died.”

“Not technically, of course,” Lady Me interrupted. “Technically you’re both still alive and on our TARDIS. But where your world is concerned, you’re both dead. A fixed point, as far as anyone but us can tell. Rose and John Tyler died stopping a black hole from levelling the Earth to make way for Formorthian gentrification.”

“No going back, then,” Rose murmured.

“We knew there wouldn’t be the moment the lift cords snapped,” John offered. Rose nodded reluctantly. She’d been prepared to die, and unassailable guilt sat sick in her stomach when she considered their entire family believing them to be gone. Poor Mum. It’d been hard enough when Tony had taken off to Uni. She'd be shattered.

“Then where are you taking us?” Rose asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” John asked before Clara could reply. Rose blinked as his hand spasmed in her own. “They’re taking us back to _him_.”

Rose’s mouth dried. In a million years, she’d never considered the possibility of actually seeing the Doctor again. Not after he’d left them to each other at Bad Wolf Bay, having secured their future together at his own expense. There’d been a finality to it Rose hadn’t even believed merited consideration. The walls were supposed to be closed.

What had happened— _what had he done?_ —in order for them to reopen?

“We won’t, if you refuse,” Lady Me told them. Clara turned betrayed eyes upon her, which the other woman ignored. “There’s an entire universe out there. If you don’t want to go back to him, we’ll find somewhere else for you to live out your lives. You have a choice in this.”

John and Rose regarded each other, holding on to one another tight enough Rose worried her knuckles would split. They’d both come to terms with the Doctor’s absence long ago. A shiny scar bisected Rose's heart in his memory—a badge of honour to admire with understanding eyes and nostalgic fondness. John’s own scars had healed in vastly different shapes. The Doctor existed as a pleasant memory, and it had been far too long since either of them had referred to him in the present tense.

“How is he?” Rose asked quietly.

“Alone,” Clara said before Lady Me could speak.

Lady Me considered her with an annoyed twitch of the eyebrow. “I’ve only crossed paths with three or four of the Doctor’s faces,” she said at length. “This one strikes me as the most tired.”

Rose frowned. Tired wasn’t good. The Doctor had been tired when they’d first met, and it had almost killed him a dozen times over.

Clara’s small whisper of ‘please’ drew her attention back to the younger woman, and Clara regarded them with beseeching eyes. “He’s my best friend. He’s a stupid, stubborn, ridiculous old man and I love him, and I can’t… I can’t stand to think of him on his own. If I could’ve stayed with him forever, I would’ve—” Rose twitched in her seat, her hand flexing in John’s “—but it never happened the way I wanted. And now I need to ensure he’ll have someone who will help him be the man I know he is, instead of the one he’s afraid he’ll become.” Her lip trembled.

John’s thoughts boiled up from the low simmer he’d managed to bank back, and Rose glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Can we talk about it?” she asked.

Clara prepared to protest, but Lady Me straightened and fixed her with a hard glare. With a huff, Clara stood and stormed out of the diner, pushing through doors which swung shut gently, instead of slamming as she’d probably wanted them to.

“Take as long as you need,” Lady Me told them. Her lips twitched into a wry smirk. “We’ve got all the time in the universe.”

She trailed along behind Clara, and Rose caught a glimpse of Clara rounding on her before the doors slipped shut once more.

Rose sank back against the booth, and reached for one of the milkshakes. Chocolate, she decided. She took a sip and blinked in surprise when the sheer magnitude of brandy overwhelmed all other flavour.

John stared at the tabletop, unseeing, even when Rose nudged the yellow one under his nose. “I think this one’s banana.”

“What do you want to do?” he asked quietly.

“I promised _you_ my forever,” Rose reminded him. “No matter what forever ends up being. If you want, we could go back to the Doctor. Or we could ask them to drop us on Barcelona. Or New New New Amsterdam—I remember you enjoyed the bannock.”

John took a reluctant sip of his own shake. “We’ve traveled back to our original universe.”

“Yes. I can tell. I think it accounts for the rocky take off.”

John sniffed. “I think our rather green pilots had a hand in it as well.”

The TARDIS hummed in agreement around them, and Rose managed to conjure up a small chuckle.

“Wherever we go, it’s hazardous to be in this universe with my face. This face… his life intersected with too many others. No matter where we end up, there may be danger.”

“You think I’ve forgotten?” Rose laughed. “Jeopardy friendly, remember?”

John kissed the back of her hand. “You’re still the one usually wandering off.” He brought their elbows to rest on the table, and leaned his forehead against her knuckles. “What if he hates me? He has every reason to. There are days I can barely stand seeing myself in the mirror, despite being able to stay with you. If I’d had to walk away, I couldn’t bear to be around him. Not if he’d been gifted with everything I ever wanted.”

His voice broke, and Rose pressed her cheek to the top of his head.

“I choose you, Jonathan Donna Tyler,” she promised, the same vow she’d recited years ago. She ran her thumb across the simple platinum band on his left ring finger. “I will always choose you. And if you’re afraid he’ll treat you with anything less than the respect and love you deserve, we’ll strike out on our own. Damn the risks.”

“Damn the risks,” John repeated. He kissed her hand again, and she could tell his lips had pulled into his usual impish grin. “I love you.”

“Quite right, too.” 

They both conjured up watery laughs, and John shifted around until he could wrap both arms around her to pull her against his chest. They stared at the same spot on the wall; miles of nothing and everything between them as they considered their course of action.

“He's rubbish on his own,” John whispered.

“He is,” Rose agreed.

“Probably do something terribly stupid if he’s left to his own devices.”

“Sounds familiar.”

John pinched her side and Rose wiggled away, grinning.

“It doesn’t have to be a final decision, us going to him,” he continued. Rose nodded. “He could decide he doesn’t want us around.”

“Think he will?”

“If it were me? Given the opportunity to spend more time with Rose Tyler? I’d suffer through having another me around, yeah.”

“You’re not him,” Rose reminded him.

“Good thing. It’s the only reason he might agree to this.” John chuckled, and while it came out more than a little self-deprecating, Rose want to wrap herself in the underlying hope as though it were a particularly soft blanket.

“There’s one more thing to consider,” Rose said, hating the damper she needed to throw on the small flicker of hope, but needing to put it out in the open regardless.

John nodded, his chin grazing the top of her head. “Jack.”

The point of an excruciatingly sharp pin lightly scratching the same patch of skin over and over again would've been less painful to the Doctor than being around Jack. His very existence a sensation which started off as an annoying tickle, but grew agonizing with prolonged exposure. The Doctor might feel the same about them. There’d never been a way for them to check before now.

“It could make the decision easier, anyway,” John finally allowed.

“For him.”

John breathed contentedly against her hair. “For him.” Neither of them were debating the decision to go to him any longer. They’d already made it.

He caught her hand and held on tight. They sat in quiet contemplation as they waited for their hosts to rejoin them. Lady Me appeared capable of holding Clara back a while, but Rose doubted anyone could stop her long-term. Clara came across as… formidable.

The woman in question stumbled back out of the cockpit only a few minutes later, five-foot-two-inches of frustration bundled up in a pleated skirt and tartan blouse.

“Well?” she demanded.

Rose felt, rather than heard, Lady Me sigh from behind her.

Rose tipped her head back towards John. One last check before they agreed to anything. John kissed her temple and straightened to reach for his milkshake.

“ _Allons-y_ ,” he said.

“What?” Clara asked.

“Honestly, you fell into his timestream and never heard… you know what. Yes. Lay on, MacDuff, and all that twaddle. Go pop us out anywhere nearby and we’ll find him.”

Clara’s relieved grin compensated for all her high-handed annoyance. She hadn’t appreciated their hesitance, but her concern came from love. Rose could relate; how many times had she done something for the Doctor which frustrated those around her?

“Let’s go then!” Clara said. She spun on her heel and took off back through the doors. John and Rose stood and followed at a more sedate pace.

Rose had to admit, Clara had a deft hand with her borrowed TARDIS. And, perhaps, this model boasted controls which were slightly smoother to operate than the one the Doctor had stolen all those years ago. Either way, she effortlessly dialled into their destination, wherever it was.

They set down far gentler than they'd taken off. Despite the twitching of his lips, Rose doubted John would apologize for blaming the rough ride on their two hosts.

“London 2017,” she declared. “The Doctor should be arriving shortly to investigate one anomaly or another.”

“Always London,” Rose said with a small smile.

“Always,” John agreed.

They strolled through the diner and out the TARDIS doors. London felt exactly as it had before Rose had slipped into Pete’s World. A few new buildings had inevitably gone up, and the fashions were subtly different than the ones they'd left behind, but the air she breathed in and allowed to settle in her lungs spoke of home.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Clara had dropped them practically on top of the Gherkin. She followed them out the door, gazing around wistfully before conjuring up a small smile.

“Take care of him for me,” she whispered. Then she coughed and straightened. “Best not tell him I’m the one who brought you here, though.”

“Will we see you again?” Rose asked.

Clara paled, and shook her head. “No, I don’t suppose you will.” She flung herself at Rose and hugged her tightly for only a moment before letting go and treating John to the same enthusiastic embrace. “Thank you.”

Lady Me nodded at them, and disappeared back into the TARDIS without another word. Clara scanned the street, her eyes shining with fragile hope as her attention flitted from face to face, the light in her eyes dimming with each passing moment. Finally, with a small sigh, she waved and slipped back inside.

The TARDIS dematerialized with a final-sounding whir of the engines, leaving them alone in a city teeming with people.

“She doesn't have a heartbeat,” John said quietly. “Whoever she is, she isn't alive.”

“She was alive enough to get us here,” Rose corrected.

John clasped her hand in his.

They meandered over to a nearby bench next to the river, and Rose took the opportunity to fill her lungs with the scent of petrichor and smog—scents she’d always tried to chase in Peter’s World, but had never lived up to her memories of home. She curled herself into John’s side when they sat, her ears perking up as she listened for the telltale sound of the TARDIS’ arrival.

She wondered if her favourite chippie was still open. Did they have time to sneak there and back?

“What if he’s regenerated? Will we even recognize him?” John asked.

“I can’t imagine it’ll be a problem,” Rose chuckled.

Before he could say much more, he tensed, and Rose sat up immediately in response. 

She spotted the cause immediately.

“You’ve got to be joking,” she muttered, watching as Harrington—this universe’s version—trundled along down the pavement, saggy skin swaying with every step. Did he pay for a decent shimmer in any reality?

“We should…” John began.

Rose nodded. “Yeah.”

They might miss the Doctor, of course, but Rose had a feeling they’d probably run into him if Harrington had the same designs here as in Pete's World. Hopefully he hadn’t gotten set up. If they got caught in another explosion, there’d be no third chances.

They stood as one and tailed him at a distance.

Rose couldn't be sure about Torchwood in this universe; they’d never operated in the open the way they had under Pete’s command. Their IDs would probably be wholly useless. But their psychic papers should at least provide them an in.

Harrington turned a corner, and they were once again treated to the sight of a phallus-shaped building. This one, however, looked less Menopterran and more like the Shansheeth. Harrington needed to find a new architect. Or at least pay his own more to avoid unfortunate implications.

“Well, let’s go ruin his day for a second time,” John said as he meandered into the building.

Rose nodded, checked her sidearm, and led him into the building. This time she'd put the bastard down before he had a chance to destroy the lift.

* * *

The TARDIS' engines hummed with an odd, excited edge as they landed; practically jubilant in their comforting trill. He hadn’t experienced it for quite a while. Before… well. Before his previous companion, whomever Clara had been, and probably since before Amy and Rory as well. He’d taken for granted she’d lost such carefree song, and chalked it up to one more casualty. The pleased psychic hum, warm and welcoming, nearly startled him enough to remain inside to euphorically bask in it a while. If it wasn’t for her unsubtle nudge, he would have stayed put.

“You’ll tell me eventually,” he whispered, running his fingers along the console as he walked past it on his way to the door. 

He stepped outside, however reluctantly, and aimed himself at the headquarters for Corbett Warrington, would-be intergalactic real estate developer, who’d made the erroneous decision to help Earth “realize it’s potential” in the market via its complete destruction in favour of some hackit baw that’d add absolutely nothing to the galactic community.

He’d already sent a strictly-worded note to Warrington’s backers. Now he had to kick the man’s arse off Earth.

He winced when he got sight of Warrington’s office building. Whoever he’d hired to design it either had a Shansheeth fetish or had suffered a particularly regrettable coincidence.

The gentleman waiting at the reception desk greeted him with a warm, if bland, smile, and asked how he could be directed.

“Yes.” The Doctor pulled out his psychic paper and held it aloft for examination. “I’m here to see Corbett Warrington.”

“Ah, yes. You must be with the other investigators. I’ll summon security back to show you through.”

“Yes, thank—” The Doctor paused. “Other investigators?”

“Indeed, sir. They arrived a little less than fifteen minutes ago. Mr. Warrington is meeting with them now.”

Well. Either the Shadow Proclamation had jumped on Warrington faster than the Doctor (highly doubtful, their new clerical assistant was rubbish), or something else was afoot.

He impatiently prodded the security guard along to Warrington’s office, eventually giving up all pretext of following the lumbering specimen of humanity in favour of preceding him.

“If you could wait here,” he muttered, stopping outside Warrington’s office. He slipped his sonic out of his pocket. “We’ll tell you our findings when we’ve made a decision.”

Without waiting, he slipped inside and shut the door swiftly behind him before the guard saw Warrington passed out on the floor, wrists secured by universal-grade biorestraints. Whoever had beaten him here at least knew what they were doing.

A small globe on the desk had been opened to reveal lift buttons, and it took a work of moments to find the cavity in which the lift had been placed. He pressed the call button and waited impatiently, wishing he’d discovered this body’s nervous tic he could rely on to pass the time. He’d enjoyed ear-tugging, back when he indulged. As an experiment, he picked at a few musical chords in the air, nodding in satisfaction when it sufficiently scratched the itch.

The lift opened an agonizing fifty-six seconds later, dangerously indicative of how deep the shaft went into the earth.

He turned to eye Warrington with displeasure. “You’ve been naughty, haven’t you?”

Still unconscious, Warrington deigned not respond.

The Doctor stepped aboard and hit the only button available. The missing warm iron calorimetre and cooling system stolen from SLAC’s LINAC should be below, probably incorporated into a particle collider, created for the express purpose of planetary destruction. While a sort of beauty existed in the idea of an entirely self-contained black hole large enough to consume the planet, but small enough to blink out of existence shortly afterwards and leave the rest of the solar system unaltered, it remained a beauty better considered in the realm of the hypothetical.

He had to give Warrington credit where due; when he set his mind to the destruction of a planet, he set about it with admirable efficiency.

He reached the bottom of the shaft and the doors slid open. He stepped out into the cavernous expanse, eyes practically gleaming in anticipation of taking apart the _completely absent device_.

“This is unexpected,” he decided.

“You don’t know the half of it,” an oddly familiar voice said from his side.

The Doctor turned, slower than he’d meant to, and blinked when he found himself face-to-face with… himself. Generally speaking, when these unexpected encounters occurred, he could feel the weight of time pressing into him as a warning of the consequences of crossing his own timeline. It had happened more than once in his past, and while the memories were fuzzy, he couldn’t help but think he’d never seen this face on himself with these old eyes before. 

“I must have miscalculated. Crossed our timelines.” Would Martha be here? Donna? 

Could he have even the slimmest chance of seeing Rose?

The face—his tenth, though he vividly recalled wearing pinstripes—smiled sadly. “Not hardly, no.”

The Doctor frowned, eyebrows drawing heavily down. He drew his sonic from his pocket, scanning the—what? Projection? Clone? He hadn’t dealt with a clone recently, and frequently considered them completely insufferable in the way only his own company could ever be.

He frowned at his results. “What.” He stepped forward, glaring at the _human_ before him. “No.”

The human nodded. Finally, the Doctor spirited his sonic back away and placed his hand on the man’s chest, his palm resting above his heart, eyes drifting shut for only a single moment. "You're my metacrisis."

"Go by John, these days," John told him, the corners of his mouth twitching ever so.

"John," the Doctor repeated. He frowned, his already intense amount of eyebrow intensifying further. "You're supposed to be with Rose."

“What makes you think I’m not?” John tilted his head, eyes fixed across the expanse.

_Why don't you ask her yourself?_

The Doctor’s gaze followed his line of sight, and while he refused to allow his hands to shake, it wasn’t for want of it. The cavern itself stretched out more than a half a mile across, and there, on the far side, waited Rose Tyler. His impossible pink and yellow human, crouched down near where the particle collider would have been fixed to draw up the geothermic energy required to generated power.

She must have noticed their scrutiny because she stood a moment later. He could tell the moment she spotted him; her eyes lit up, a blinding smile stretching across her face. The details were hard to make out, but the overwhelming joy suddenly suffusing the excavation site pressed in all around him. Not only hers, but John’s as well, a quick glance his way revealing a broad grin stretched across his face. It fed into the Doctor’s senses in a loop, and he half-staggered beneath the weight.

Rose began the agonizingly long jog across the space between them.

Behind him, John shifted. “Don’t you want to go to her?”

“More than anything,” the Doctor whispered. He coughed through the hard press of his hearts against his ribcage. “But last time I did, you happened.”

Instead of taking offense, the human laughed, and the intense feeling of bliss threaded itself in with sudden humour and uncomplicated delight. "Yes, well. Unless Daleks have got significantly quieter since we left, I think you're safe this time."

It felt like too much. Much too much. If he’d been a better man, he would’ve run from it. And yet he found himself completely incapable of movement, still as a statue as Rose Tyler drew closer and closer. Until she stood in front of him. Until she wrapped her arms around him.

“I’m.” He wasn’t much for hugging in this body. He’d told Clara—hadn’t he? Had it been Clara? He must've told _someone_ —hugging wasn’t for him. But he hadn’t held Rose Tyler in his arms for more than a millennium, and he found himself completely incapable of telling her to release him or pulling away from her embrace. Or doing anything save hesitantly patting her back and allowing her the presumptuous liberty.

“Not one for hugging this time, hmm?” she said, finally drawing back.

“How?” he demanded, all he could force out past his lips. He’d wanted to express even a fraction of the bubbling ebullience threatening to turn his very being inside-out with the sheer magnitude of feeling. Doctor Idiot struck mute when it mattered.

“Bit of a process, passing through a formerly impenetrable dimensional barrier,” John said.

“Are you saying it’s a long story?” the Doctor asked.

“Not terribly long,” Rose said, drawing back from him. Confusing, conflicting feelings of relief and loss swelled up inside him the absence of her touch, both assuaged when she slipped her hand into his own. It fit perfectly, as it always had.

John—Had Rose christened him with the human moniker? Had he chosen it himself? When had he stopped referring to himself as 'the Doctor'?—never lost his smile. If anything, it widened by the moment, until he shook his head and took Rose’s other hand. A sign of peace? Understanding? What?

“You’re very psychically expressive this go around, aren’t you?” John asked.

How utterly mortifying. The Doctor slammed down every psychic barrier he’d ever built, and both humans rocked backwards with the force of it. The ocean of their combined jubilance vanished as easily as a sweeping pull of the tide, leaving him alone in his mind, with feelings he couldn’t hope to define. Rose’s hand trembled in his, but once the benign tremour faded, her grip tightened. His arm tensed, but he allowed the small intimacy. He’d never admit his hunger for it, but the impression flickered undaunted through his mind all the same.

He waved his free hand about the space. “Where’s the particle collider, then?” he demanded. 

“We only just arrived,” John told him. 

“It was already gone,” Rose continued.

The Doctor glowered at the empty space. “Not good, that. A missing particle collider is a recipe for tragedy. Can never be sure where it might turn up.”

“A mystery we’ll have to look into,” John nodded. “Together, perhaps?” 

Rose seamlessly continued, “If you’re interested in having company.”

The Doctor’s mental barriers wobbled under the weight of a sudden outpouring of optimism. He had spent a thousand years mourning Rose Tyler in fits and bursts which came and went when ran out of distractions. He’d carried it with him in an invisible satchel of grief which in turns weighed him down and lifted him up; buoyed him with the memory of her or encumbered with his regrets. He’d loved many of his companions, but not in the way he’d loved Rose, with love borne from a cracked, damaged life she’d helped to piece back together until it resembled something whole. It was unfair to the others he’d traveled with since, but ‘fair’ was such a terribly subjective thing. And if he considered fairness at all, how could it have been fair to Rose’s memory to allow anyone else to occupy the same place in his hearts?

“Please,” he stuttered over the word, unaccustomed to the way it tumbled from in his mouth.

“Before we go anywhere, you need to understand we’re a packaged deal, Doctor,” Rose told him. Her fingers tightened on John’s. 

The Doctor considered John, trying to view him beyond the unfortunate consequence of a desperate action. He hadn’t born any resemblance to this man—physically, mentally, emotionally—in such a long time he could barely remember what it meant to be him.

John struck him, for all the world, as both understanding and depressingly accepting. If the Doctor walked out and left them, he would not be judged for it. They would, perhaps, think of him with fondness from time to time, but they would forge ahead on their own merits. And wasn’t it wonderful they were capable of standing on their own? There had always been a nascent worry in the back of his mind, after he’d left them, that he’d retarded their ability to grow and realize how absolutely incredible they could be together, as they wasted away for want of him. He’d been brilliantly wrong in such baseless fear. They'd proven themselves worthy of the incredible feats he'd mentally ascribed in their absence.

“John, Rose – would you care to join me in the TARDIS?”

John smiled sidelong at Rose. “If you’ll have us.”

A grin splitting his face, the Doctor nodded. “Then, please, follow me.”

He couldn’t help but notice Rose gripping their hands significantly tighter when they stepped into the lift. John’s shoulders tensed. Did they share an inherent fear of elevators, or had a shared traumatic event enabled this specific brand of claustrophobia? He found himself selfishly cheered to realize he had the opportunity to discover for himself.

Rose pulled away from him when the lift doors slid open and she half-stumbled out. Warrington still lay bound on the floor, well on his way to blinking back towards consciousness.

He squeezed Rose’s hand once before releasing her. Time for looming, and one couldn't effectively loom when holding a pretty woman's hand.

He waited until the Formorth’s eyes regained their focus before speaking, “Where did you hide the collider?”

Warrington's face twisted up in confusion a far cry more convincing than the rest of his shimmer.

Satisfied Warrington had believed the abomination still housed downstairs, the Doctor continued, “Earth is designated Level Five by Shadow Proclamation Planetary Classification. You are not permitted to destroy it for any reason, including but not limited to, real estate development.” He intensified his looming, and brought his eyebrows into play. Marvelous things, eyebrows. Really managed to make a statement. “More importantly, this world is under _my_ protection. There will be no further attempts to destroy it.”

Chastened, Warrington flopped about on the floor until Rose took pity on him and undid his restraints. He managed to get his feet under him and stood, hanging on the side of his desk.

“I’ll inform my people,” he muttered, real fear in his eyes.

“Do,” the Doctor ordered.

He didn’t wait to make sure the Formorth left. He could feel the shifting sensation of Earth’s future settling, out of danger. For now. Until they found the collider, at any rate.

Rose and John followed him back out of the building, nodding respectfully to the security guards.

“Too bad the building will stay standing,” John commented as they passed through the doors. “Sends the wrong message if you ask me. Come to Earth, admire our local wildlife, the spontaneity of human nature, and our massive tributes to interstellar genital configuration.”

Rose laughed, and the Doctor found he’d missed the sound most of all.

He’d tucked the TARDIS into a small alleyway nearby, and even with his mental shields in place he could feel the overjoyed sensation of welcome she exuded as they drew closer. Little wonder she’d been excited earlier; no one else could claim to understand her the same way Rose could. And John… well. She’d always had a soft spot for him, in any of his iterations. The human ones as well, apparently.

He lifted his hand to snap his fingers, and found he’d tucked it back into Rose’s, completely unaware. She did drop his hand when they reached the TARDIS, however, and fixed John with an impish grin.

“Yours or mine?”

As one, they both reached into their shirts. Rose withdrew her TARDIS key, hanging on a lengthy golden chain, and John produced one laced on a thin platinum braid.

“Where—?” the Doctor began.

John shrugged. “Nicked one before you left.”

“What else did you take?!”

“A ream of psychic paper, twenty yards of Gallifreyan silk, the last of the Villengardian bananas, and Rose.”

The last made the Doctor’s eyes narrow, but John simply grinned. Distracted as they were, neither of them noticed Rose letting herself in, though they were immediately brought back to the present at the sound of her gasp.

“Doctor…”

He moved to stand behind her, even as John pressed up against her side. There were stars in their eyes as they beheld her, appreciative and awed and amazed. The desktop had been substantially different the last time they’d stepped aboard, after all.

“Welcome home,” the Doctor offered, proud of how his voice may have lowered, but remained steady regardless.

“You’ve decorated,” John murmured. He moved forward, running his hands along the railings, coming to stop before the console. “I like it.” His hands twitched, and while he started to reach out, he paused before they could do more than inch forward.

“May I?” he asked with a glance over his shoulder.

“By all means,” the Doctor replied. Rose leaned back into his chest and favoured him with a beautiful smile.

Grinning wildly, John pressed in a few coordinates and wrapped his hand around the dematerialization lever. His knuckles turned white where he gripped it, but when he finally pressed it down a truly gleeful laugh of wonder pealed out to fill the room.

“ _Allons-y!_ ”


	2. The Funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't believe there are any content warnings for this chapter!
> 
> If you ever do feel there's something I've failed to tag, please make sure to let me know.

It didn’t seem right, an empty grave. Not when Rose and John’d done so much for the world. They deserved more. A monument somewhere important. A place they’d be rightfully recognized. Not buried beneath the streets of London, under countless tonnes of glass and steel, never to be found. If Pete had still been around, he’d’ve seen to it. Jackie knew it in her heart. He’d’ve put the world to work pulling them both out of the ground and given them a proper burial.

Tony was the only one who seemed sympathetic. He stood at her side, hand gentle on her shoulder, his boys obedient ducklings lined up behind him, completely at odds with their usual rambunctiousness. Now their impressions of the formative influences in their lives matched the stillness to which both were eternally resigned.

They’d forced her into her chair for this, and Jackie tried and failed not to be bitter about it. She could’ve managed with her walker. Even though her knees knocked when she thought on how she’d never see her amazing daughter and her incredible son ever again. She’d never’ve been able to keep standing for the whole time. But she’d’ve given it her all. For them. 

“Time to go, mum,” Tony leaned down to whisper. Everyone else’d buggered off long before now, leaving what remained of their family to honour their fallen.

Bloody Torchwood. Couldn’t be arsed to do more than sent a cheap bunch of lilies and an unsigned poundshop card.

“I can’t, Tony. ‘S not right.”

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispered, leaning down to press a kiss to her hair. It were all wispy-thin these days, and she could feel the brush of his lips against her scalp. Jenna kept at her to get a wig, but Jackie weren’t that vain any more. Not since she’d buried Pete for the second time.

Jackie breathed in a tremulous, shaking breath. She couldn’t show weak eyes to the boys. They were all she had left, now.

Tony had picked out the headstone. It was a classy thing; slanted black rock inscribed with silver script. No one had been sure what to put down for John’s birthdate, and Rose would’ve railed if their inscriptions had been at all different. Instead, Tony had written out a beautiful epitaph. It was less than they deserved, and never did them a moment of justice, but at least it was something.

_Rose and John Tyler_

_Be at peace and dream  
We have given ourselves to keep you safe._

Tony turned, ostensibly to say something to his eldest, but really to give Jackie a moment alone. There was a gentle wind coming up, rustling the trees around the graveyard. As the sun peaked out from behind a small bank of clouds, the shadows of the shaking leaves fell on some of the letters, leaving a small handful lit up by sunlight.

She peered at the remaining letters, and a shocked laugh of disbelief broke free from her chest.

**B** e at pe **a** ce and **d** ream  
 **W** e gave **o** urse **l** ves to keep you sa **f** e

John had always called Rose his impossible girl. And it seemed as though she'd keep being impossible for a good while longer.

“Mum?” Tony said, turning, concern writ large on his face. “All right?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jackie said, grin splitting her face ear-to-ear. “Let’s head home. Break out the creme de menthe. Give them a proper send off.”

Confused, but obviously relieved, Tony nodded and pulled her chair back away from the gravesite. She could tell her grandbabies were confused, but that was fine.

She had a tale or two to tell them.


	3. Lullaby in the Deep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No significant warnings for this chapter, though if you feel I should tag something please let me know!

John woke to the familiar sensation of hair pressed into his cheek and the silky feeling of Rose’s skin beneath his palm. They’d fallen asleep tucked together, in a bed on the TARDIS which John only ever imagined sharing with her, the drain of a particularly unexpected day sending them spiralling into sleep moments after they’d dropped onto the bed together.

He pressed a kiss to the back of her head, tucking his hand beneath the elastic waist of her pyjamas, to press close to her abdomen. She murmured in her sleep. John smiled, revelling in the feel of Rose in his arms and the hum of the TARDIS in the back of his mind—two sensations he’d never thought to feel together again. He’d imagined it a thousand times in those early days in Pete’s World, as they’d encouraged their small piece of coral to begin growing, running hot with anticipation of what their lives would be like once she grew large enough for travel.

Speaking of, he opened his eyes to seek out their little girl in the dim light of the room. They’d retrieved her from his messenger bag once they’d settled in Rose’s old room—unchanged, save the bed, now conspicuously larger than it had been when a certain pink and yellow nineteen-year-old first stepped foot on the ship. The TARDIS provided them with a small nook across from the bed, near enough to settle in their coral, who'd been immediately showered with love and attention from the moment they stepped foot back on the TARDIS. She would bloom in ways they’d never imagined in Pete's World, now she enjoyed the joint care of himself, Rose, the Doctor and the TARDIS. Donna’s suggestion offered him a way to accelerate the coral’s growth, but it was still an agonizingly slow process. Their shared care and attention would enrich it.

Rose hummed sleepily and rolled over, blinking her eyes open to meet his own.

“Morning,” she murmured.

“Morning.” He couldn’t help swooping in for a kiss, catching her lips for only a moment before peppering her face with more. For years, they’d lived in Pete’s World together, making a home in each other. And while he regretted a number of the things (especially people) they’d left behind, he couldn’t regret being here, now. With Rose Tyler, and the Doctor, in the TARDIS.

The Doctor swept inside the room with a bang of the door, interrupting the generous timbre of his thoughts.

“Rose! John! Up!”

He deposited two large cups of tea on the bedside table.

Rose groaned and shoved her head under her pillow and John leveled his most impressive glower at the Doctor, which went completely unheeded as the Time Lord turned to dote on the coral in her nook. He had to give it to the Time Lord; he’d been utterly smitten when they’d manoeuvered her out of her place in John’s bag. Smitten, but also bewildered at her growth. To be fair, none of them could have anticipated Donna’s advice working as brilliantly as it did.

“Out, Doctor,” John ordered, before the Time Lord could get lost in his contemplation of the other new addition.

With a displeased tilt of eyebrows, the Doctor reluctantly left, calling for them to rouse themselves flowing in the air of his wake.

“Was he always this bad?” John muttered into Rose’s neck when the door closed behind the Doctor.

“Used to be worse,” Rose informed him. “He’s brought tea.”

Well. Donna’d managed to ingrain a handful of manners into him, after all. Out of self-defense if nothing else.

Rose pulled herself out of bed first, helping herself to the closer of the two cups, before stumbling towards the loo with tea in hand. John stretched out to pick up the second cup and settled himself against the headboard. Back on the TARDIS. The Doctor’s TARDIS. Fantastic.

John took a few sips and winced, unsurprised to find it prepared as Rose took it, with three sugars and a splash of real cream. He abandoned it as too sweet. Rose would appreciate a second cup, not what one would deem a ‘morning person.’ 

He reluctantly rolled out of bed to join Rose in the bathroom.

“I bring you tea all the time,” he grumbled good-naturedly. 

The TARDIS had thoughtfully provided him with shaving supplies. Rose’s empty cup sat next to a brilliant straight razor made from… kladenium? The TARDIS really _was_ happy to have them back.

Rose laughed from behind the opalescent shower curtain. “Oh, yeah? Did you bring me the other cup in from the bedroom then?”

Back in their flat in Pete’s World, such disparaging insinuations on his character would’ve resulted in him turning on the sink’s hot water taps to douse her in cold water. Ensuing screams and promises of vengeance would’ve closely followed. While he doubted the TARDIS’ plumbing systems would accommodate, he did manage to sneak a hand into the shower stall and cut off her hot water anyway.

She shrieked. He laughed and promptly received a wet washcloth to the face.

The thing of it was, he decided while enjoying his own lengthy shower, he rather expected things to change. Significantly. The relationship he and Rose built up out of ashes of the Dalek Crucible was tungsten-strong, but the Doctor remained an as-yet unknown element. John found it promising the Time Lord hadn't yet threatened to shuffle him off to some remote asteroid to live out his life on the slow path—more proof of his long-held suspicions that dropping him off at Bad Wolf Bay had been the Doctor’s misguided way of offering Rose the happy ending she deserved, instead of an inherent need to rid himself of John permanently. But what did their long-term mean? Because it would be long-term, if he and Rose had a say in the matter. Not only because Clara believed the Doctor needed it, either. John’s days in Pete’s World were spent loving Rose, aching for the adventure their positions with Torchwood barely assuaged, and wondering what life might’ve been if the Time Lord hadn’t been so high-handed.

Now he could find out, he supposed.

Rose vanished before he emerged from the bathroom. The air smelled of her favourite perfume—a style of which she could never find the exact replica in Pete’s World. She’d strewn her sleep things across the floor in the way she knew drove him absolutely mental. How _he’d_ ended up the neat one completely baffled him. He shook his head, bundled it all up and dropped it atop the bed to be dealt with later.

The oversized wardrobe across the room shimmied, inviting his attention.

“What, did you pick something out for me?” he asked. He crossed and opened the doors. Alongside Rose’s extensive collection of older clothing hung a painfully familiar brown pinstripe suit.

John stroked his fingertips against the fabric fondly before shaking his head and closing the door. “Thank you, but I’m not him.”

The TARDIS hummed. A moment later, the air around the wardrobe seemed to shift. When he opened the door again, an all-black ensemble waited for him in the suit’s place, a pair of snakeskin boots proudly demanding his attention.

“Oh, I couldn’t. Too funerary.”

He closed the door again, and gamely reopened it a moment later.

“Purple? _Definitely_ not me.”

Another moment of thought before the TARDIS practically shivered with glee and he tried one last time.

“Now this is perfect.” A sharp fitted grey suit with birdseye print, joined by a dark maroon long-sleeved v-neck. Exactly what he would’ve picked out for himself. (Ties had gone by the wayside after a visiting Askaibin dignitary got its webbed fingers on his own to try and strangle him. He’d never quite been able to enjoy them the same way).

And, of course, the one accessory he couldn’t live without even after all these years: a pair of maroon Converse trainers. Some things a man just couldn’t do without. 

Dressed, John left their room to seek out the Doctor and Rose, idly wondering if she’d talked him into a jaunt to her favourite chippy yet. 

He found them standing by the console, and couldn’t help the ensuing indulgent smile spreading across his face. Rose must’ve searched her entire wardrobe to find the plain denim and soft pink shirt, much more muted than the majority of her available wardrobe. She would definitely want new things to wear, considering how drastically her taste changed since she'd first joined the Doctor in his travels. He sensed they were in for an imminent shopping trip.

“I can feel you plotting over there,” Rose told him.

John shrugged and half-skipped across the distance between them, coming to stand on the Doctor’s other side and favouring the Time Lord with a grin. “Can’t help it. Grade A plotter, me.”

The Doctor’s eyebrows twitched—they really were fabulous, and John fought not to be overly jealous—and then returned his attention to the console.

“Rose suggested we should pick you both up a few things...” (Ha!) “...But the TARDIS received a distress call from New Tofino, a small planet in the Lyra system, which I hope you both agree takes priority.”

“Obviously,” Rose scoffed.

“What can you tell us about it?” John asked.

The Doctor blinked in surprise. “You don’t remember?”

John tapped the side of his head. “Human brain. Needed to prioritize what I kept in it. Wouldn’t do, remembering the millionth digit of pi and forgetting how to tie my laces.”

“That was a fun week,” Rose murmured. John reached around the Doctor to poke her side, and she batted his hand away.

The Doctor blinked, forehead furrowed for but a moment as he considered and then dismissed whatever crossed his mind in response, and punched in the necessary coordinates.

John took a moment to appreciate the sound of the TARDIS in flight. He couldn’t hear it as clearly as he might’ve been able to, once, but it sat brilliant and unchanged in the back of his mind. The TARDIS moved with an unmitigated freedom no dirigible, train, car, or boat ever came close to mimicking. He and Rose went space diving for their anniversary once, and while it came nearest to matching it, the experience still paled in comparison.

“New Tofino,” the Doctor said, interrupting John’s mental process, “Is a panthalassic planet, with only a few small islands created by underwater volcanic activity. Uninhabited except by indigenous wildlife, right up to the Forty-Ninth Century, when it’s colonized by humanity. The distress signal is being broadcast from approximately two years after the first colony was established.”

“Gonna take a while to get used to thinking about time non-linearly again,” Rose commented mildly.

The dematerialization engine thrummed as they set down. Upon opening the door, the briny smell of the sea washed over them, a suitable accompaniment to the vision of turquoise waters and white sand beaches. He imagined they’d have been hard-pressed to find a place on the small island not a stone’s throw from the shore. Three other nearby islands slid into view as he gazed out across the water.

“Beautiful,” Rose breathed at his side.

“Yes, yes, it’s all pretty,” the Doctor agreed, “But there’s a reason we’re here, and we need to determine the problem.” At Rose’s inquisitive glance, he sniffed. “Not much a fan of beaches,” he admitted, almost too quiet to hear over the sounds of the breeze and the surf slapping the shore. John heard. Rose heard. She laced her fingers with the Doctor’s, but only for a moment before he reluctantly pulled away.

“What’re those?” John asked, gesturing out to the sea. The waves were washing over curious, humped shapes slowly rising from the water. As John watched, they drew closer to the shore until squat forms appeared, flooding out onto the beach. They brought to mind smallish crocodilian fish; barely longer than Rose’s arm, with petite gills to either side of its neck. Four squat legs complemented hefty fins, and they trotted along at a decent pace. Drawing closer and closer. _En masse_.

“Do you see those teeth?” John said, whipping out his glasses to squint as they approached.

“We should run,” Rose said.

One of the larger ones, in front, snapped its jaws. “And there it is,” John said, trying and failing not to grin manically, as Rose grabbed his hand and hauled him away from the TARDIS.

She pulled John along, the Doctor keeping pace as they tore away from the snapping jaws behind them. The ground's messy collection of sand, fallen leaves from the large fronded trees surrounded them, and thick tubular grass crunched beneath their feet as they rounded the TARDIS and careened towards the settlement in the distance. John estimated the island to be little more than a mile across, and the colony only a loose collection of about a dozen yurts. As they closed in, he noted a long dock stretching out into the sea, mooring several submersibles. Peaceful. Idyllic, even. Save for the sharp-toothed things behind them.

He glanced over his shoulder, half-tripping when he realized they weren’t being followed. Through the rows of thin trees, he saw them swarming the TARDIS, climbing overtop each other to scratch at it with wickedly sharp claws.

“Look at them,” he murmured. Rose grabbed him and shepherded him along instead of allowing him to tarry. Gorgeous and sensible, his Rose.

They’d barely reached the outskirts of the town before the door to the closest yurt flung open.

“What are you doing?!” a man’s voice screeched from inside. “Get out of the open before they get you!”

* * *

“We have no name for them.”

Their host, Vollister Uyboco, appeared to be in his early forties, though she suspected his warm olive skin had been prematurely weathered by hard work and sunlight. He came across as a nice enough bloke, now he'd stopped screaming bloody murder at them.

A small holographic device sat on the floor between the four of them and Vollister’s wife, Mireem, who cradled a young child in her arms. It displayed a crystal-clear image of the long-toothed beasties.

“Reminds me of an eryops,” John muttered from her side. He pulled his glasses out to examine the details. “Those teeth are impressive, aren't they?”

“And dangerous. They came out of the sea and dragged away a dozen of our people before we even realized they’d found us. They move quick.” Vollister shuddered. “I can still hear our husband screaming.”

“They took them alive?” the Doctor asked.

“We considered searching for survivors, but whenever we leave our homes they come for us,” Mireem told them in a small voice. Her child squirmed in her arms and she hushed them with a comforting murmur of nonsense. “A few bodies washed up on shore, drowned, but we’ve no idea what’s happened to the others.”

“I saw the subs you’ve got out there. Have you tried to find out?” Rose asked.

Vollister shook his head. “We haven’t dared. I think they haven’t found us in our homes yet because their eyesight isn’t good. But as soon as we step foot on the ground outside, they come for us.”

“Perhaps tracking the vibrations in your steps?” the Doctor asked.

Rose frowned. “Then why not come after us?”

“Because the TARDIS vibrates more than our footsteps ever will,” the Doctor decided.

Fair enough; they utterly swamped the TARDIS. Good thing their girl could protect herself. “What’s our next move, then?”

“Well, if the TARDIS is distracting them, we could always take one of the subs down, see what we can find,” John suggested. 

“You established the colony only two years ago, correct?” the Doctor asked.

Vollister nodded. “Yes. We’ve been self-sufficient before now. There are enough fish in the sea to feed everyone on the planet indefinitely, and the ground has taken to our efforts to grow fruits and vegetables.” His face drew. “Since the first attack we’ve all been surviving on the rations we brought when we first colonized here, but we’re running low.”

“Two years and these things are only seeking you out now? I wonder what changed to draw them out,” the Doctor mused. He tucked his fingers beneath his chin, brow drawn.

Both Mireem and Vollister shrugged, then the latter continued, “We recently decided to branch out into trade with some of the colonies on other nearby planets, but we haven’t been able to establish anything yet. We only just began mining operations.” He frowned. “Communication with the mining facility has been cut off since shortly after their first attack. We don’t know if anyone down there is alive.”

“Down there?” the Doctor repeated.

“The islands are scant, and too small to support more than a handful of residential buildings. We spent the past year building an underwater habitat for operations.”

“Perhaps start there, then, if the mining only started recently and they’ve lost contact,” John suggested.

“The subs will fit four comfortably,” Mireem said. “I can show you how to operate one.”

“I’d rather you not leave the shelter, Mireem,” Vollister said.

“I’d rather not starve,” she returned.

Vollister frowned, but reached out for their child.

The narrow alleys between the yurts led through the settlement to the docks. As they made their way through the settlement, people peered out of their homes, watching their progress with sunken eyes and hollowed cheeks. Rose waved at a few of them, and received a few tentative, hopeful acknowledgements in return. No one seemed willing to join them in their trek to the docks, however. She couldn’t blame them.

As they neared, Mireem regarded the nearby water warily. Still, she forged on, quickly discussing the controls as she unhooked one of the submersibles for them. It looked sturdy, Rose had to admit. A bubbled window sat at the forefront, with numerous small propellers affixed to the sides and bottom.

“What’s that, then?” the Doctor asked, pointing out over the gentle waves. It took a moment for Rose to spot the dark shape beneath the waves, little over a hundred meters from the dock. 

“Our pipeline,” Mireem replied. “The mineral core of the planet is the most valuable of our mining operations. The pipelines bring the raw materials here from the mines. We don’t have enough room to store anything on land, so we use an underwater storage unit for the ore.”

“You’ve no refineries?” 

“None. But one of our sister islands has plans in the works to make it happen.” 

The Doctor’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but he hopped into the vehicle without another word. John and Rose joined him, tucking themselves into the uncomfortable seats as the Doctor sealed the hull. John shifted over, placing himself behind the controls. The Doctor slumped into the seat next to Rose.

“Probably not a coincidence, then,” John muttered, starting the engine with a flick of the button. “They start mining and these things, attracted to vibrations, follow the pipe back to the settlement.”

“We need to see if there are survivors,” Rose said. “If it’s only been a few days, there’s hope.”

John grabbed her hand and squeezed tight, even as Mireem helped cast them off and they sank beneath the surface. Instead of a long stretch of sand, a shelf surrounded the island before a drastic drop-off descended into deeper water. Within moments, the pipeline became clearer; a mass of black metal larger around than Rose was tall, disappearing into the inky black water.

“Should we follow it?” John asked.

“Makes sense,” the Doctor nodded. “We should find the mining facility she mentioned”

He’d barely finished speaking when a shape flitted past the front viewscreen, too quick for Rose to follow. She and John traded uneasy frowns, but he forged onward.

The pipeline stretched out and away from the island, miles of black metal cutting through the otherwise pristine turquoise sea.

“This isn’t right,” Rose murmured. The Doctor turned in his seat to regard her. “This type of planet should have more wildlife in the sea, if it has any at all.”

“Unless the pipeline scared away everything else,” the Doctor suggested.

“Or the creatures ate them,” John said, grim.

The pipeline continued traveling along, close to the surface, until it finally disappeared into what appeared to be a towering undersea mountain, a junction breaking away towards an elaborate underwater habitat, large enough to house massive equipment and people alike.

Swarming just beneath the surface above it, a school of the creature—eryops, for lack of anything better to call them, Rose supposed—swam in a synchronous, repetitive circle. They moved whip-fast through the water, significantly faster than they were on land.

As the submersible closed the distance to the underwater building, they finally took note of them. As one, they moved out of the circular formation and cut towards them, surrounding the sub within moments.

“They’re going to sink us if they clog the propellers,” John said.

The Doctor nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

Before John could begin to move them, the eryopses began attempting to latch onto the bubble-top, their claws scratching at the clear surface, shallow at first but cutting deeper with each swipe, until Rose feared they'd cut all the way through it.

"They're going to sink us!" Rose shouted.

"Hold on!"

John slammed his hand on the controls, and the engine stilled. They began a rapid descent through the water, the eryopses following in a cloud of fins and grey flesh, until the sub thudded against the side of the mountain and stilled.

None of them moved—none of them dared—and while the eryopses continued churning in the water around them, they ignored the stranded sub. Or perhaps they couldn't find it at all.

Eventually, the swarm turned back towards the surface, leaving them abandoned against the mountainside.

The entire exchange took less than five minutes. And considering how quickly they'd cut through the water, five minutes wouldn't be enough time for them to outswim the things if they started up the submersible again. A hundred metres of open water separated them from the mining facility; a terrifying distance when one considered how fast the eryopses moved. Rose was a fair hand at swimming, but nowhere near as fast as the things hunting them in the water.

John squinted out into the sea. The lack of salinity kept the water from becoming brackish and they could easily see the things still swarming near the surface overhead. Not near far enough away for them to reach the facility safely.

“I could pilot the sub away,” he offered.

“No point. You’d be swarmed within moments and have to kill the engine before we could get more than a few feet,” the Doctor replied.

“Does it have an autopilot?” Rose asked. “Or whatever the boat equivalent is? Could we send it in the other direction? If they really do go after the biggest vibration, it’ll keep them away from us.”

John grinned. “You’re brilliant.” He began playing with the controls, flipping switches and programming in commands until he nodded a few moments later. “There we go. We’ll have to be quick—I’d say we have less than twenty seconds to get away from the sub before those things are on it.”

Twenty seconds. Not a substantial amount of time, but still better than nothing. They all knew this would probably be their only chance.

“We should let the cabin fill. It will take less time for us to get out if we’re not fighting against water trying to get in,” the Doctor suggested. 

Rose clutched her hands into fists to stop them from shaking, adrenaline suffusing her veins with quiet electricity as she prepared herself to swim for her life. She began taking deep breaths, expanding her lungs as best she could. Of course there weren’t conveniently placed rebreathers in the back. Nothing could ever be so easy.

John shed his jacket and grabbed her hand quickly, squeezing her fingers tight before pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Brace yourselves,” he said a moment later, typing in a few last commands. “It’s going to be cold.”

Cold couldn't begin to describe the shocking touch of the frigid water stealing the breath from her lungs. Her back seized as her muscles spasmed away from the icy water climbing up her legs. She forced herself to breathe through it, taking in as much air as she could before the water completely filled the sub.

John waited until the last possible moment to open the hatch, and waved the Doctor and Rose out first. Rose swam up, braced her legs against the side of the submersible and launched herself off, aiming for the nearby building. The sub came to life behind her, rocking with the whipping churn of the water as the eryopses began to rocket down from the surface. She glanced behind her, but the churning whitewater kicked back by the sub’s propellers obscured everything else as it moved away from them. Had John made it out? Had the Doctor?

It took far too long to get an answer to her question; she daren’t stop swimming when the sub would be overwhelmed by the things attacking it any second. Rose kicked, cutting through the water as best she could in a half-decent breaststroke, fighting against the cold and the growing need to drag in a lungful of air. She reached the building’s hatch and hammered on the entrance button until it finally swung open to permit her entry.

The Doctor and John both followed in close behind her.

The hatch opened into a tunnel, and Rose swam forward, lungs burning with the need to heave in even the smallest bit of air. An orange, man-made tint from a nearby light illuminated the water as they neared it. The tunnel finally widened out, and Rose broke the water’s surface, gasping in relieved breaths as John and the Doctor surfaced beside her.

“You lost a shoe,” John told her.

“Bugger my shoe,” Rose replied, “How do we get out of here?”

‘Here’ being a small air pocket, barely larger than the sub and made of the same clear material. There also wasn’t an obvious way out.

“Hold on,” John said. He took a deep breath and dove back under the water. He surfaced again a second later. “There’s another hatch down there.”

“We’ll need to equalize the pressure before we can open it,” the Doctor said.

John ducked back down, and a moment later the water began draining away, slow enough that Rose kept treading water until she finally touched down on a metal grate, and easily keeping her footing as the rest of it drained away.

A blue light flashed on the small porthole until the water disappeared entirely, at which point it turned solid and swung open.

“This could be bad,” the Doctor said.

“Would be pretty uncharacteristic otherwise,” John agreed.

Before anyone could object, he slipped through into the facility first. Rose shook her head and followed close behind, leaving the Doctor to bring up the rear.

Diving equipment packed each corner of the relatively small room, and humidity choked the air as though they'd stepped into a steam room. While Rose appreciated the heat, she would’ve appreciated it more if it'd been dry. Without a word, John started searching the lockers lining the wall, searching it quickly and ignoring what appeared to be the a collection of diver propulsion vehicles. He moved onto the next, and the next, until he located a small stack of towels and wetsuits.

“Best get out of these clothes sooner rather than later, if we’re going to end up back in the water.”

Rose stripped off her shirt, relieved to be out of it, and caught the towel John tossed her way, though it could only really do so much. She awkwardly shimmied to get the wetsuit on over her damp skin, wiggling about to pull it up. She chanced a glanced upwards as she slipped her arms into the sleeves, and smiled to herself when both John and the Doctor both whipped their attention from her to other points in the room.

Once he’d pulled on his own wetsuit, John pulled out his sonic and began scanning their surroundings. “No sign of those things in here,” he said.

“Maybe the miners got lucky,” Rose suggested.

“Only one way to find out,” the Doctor said. He tried the only other door and, finding it locked, used his own sonic to get it open.

He promptly walked right into the barrel of a gun.

To the best of Rose’s knowledge, the TARDIS only ever translated cursing through her language circuits when stress overcame her ability to censor them, or when she wanted to be funny. The Doctor—Rose’s first Doctor—frequently tried to find a way around it, but never figured it out (to his chagrin and ongoing want of profanity). In this case, considering the violent tone to the words spilling out of the mouth of the man they’d stumbled upon, they were probably missing out on quite the parade of filth.

Finally, through the virulent exclamations, he shouted, “And who are you anyway?”

“I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor replied. “We were sent to find you.”

The man, shaking, lowered his weapon. “How? You should’ve been swarmed the second you got into the water.”

“We set them to chasing our sub,” John said, popping out from behind the Doctor. “So hopefully you’ve got another one somewhere in here, or we’re all going to be stuck swimming back.”

The man shook his head in disbelief. Without the pressing urgency of a gun shoved in her face, Rose took a moment to examine the heavy machinery filling the expansive space. The whirring roar of engines grated against her nerves, her bones practically vibrating with the force of their combined bellows.

“And you are?” the Doctor asked.

“Sibrillis. Chief engineer.”

The Doctor frowned. “How many of you are left?”

“Only me, now. The others all tried to escape, but those things sank the boats.”

“Did you see what happened? Were there any survivors?” John asked.

“They dragged them off. They always do. We’ve never been able to figure out where they take us.” Sibrillis shivered. “I watched from the command centre.”

“Perhaps we could get a look at things. At least determine if they managed to destroy our submersible,” the Doctor suggested.

“Sure,” Sibrillis said. His expression spoke of anything but surety. “Follow me.”

They wound their way through the rows of machines; incredibly they’d managed to get everything set up in the underwater habitat without arousing the eryopses’ attention. They reminded Rose of pictures she’d seen of old oil pumps, but the smooth up and down motion resulted in the grinding whine still shaking her to her teeth.

“What are these things, exactly?” Rose asked.

“They draw up the ore we need from the underwater mountain range,” Sibrillis informed her.

The Doctor glowered at the machines. His peerless glowering skills were really top notch these days. Anyone else would find it intimidating. Well, perhaps anyone else except John, unaffected and amused, in turn.

They reached the command centre, a small room with seating for a dozen people in front of a large viewscreen, with numerous displays constantly scrolling through information. Rose gave them a half-second’s attention at best; she wouldn’t be able to understand or appreciate any of the nuances of undersea mining. Instead, she looked out through the viewscreen towards where their submersible lay prone at the side of one of the mountains. The eryopses had abandoned it only a short distance from the facility. They’d been lucky they’d made it at all.

The creatures in question were once again recongregated at the surface, circling around in the same strange pattern as before. It took her a moment to realize they were swimming at the same pace as the large pistons in the other room.

If the machines were the reason they'd appeared, they were also the reason they were staying.

* * *

“When did you say they first appeared?” John asked, coming to a stop beside Rose and joining her in her scrutiny. She frowned up at the surface of the water, watching the eyropses swim laps above, frenetic energy all contained in strict rotations.

“Right after we powered things up,” Sibrillis said. “We tried chumming the water with poisoned meat rations, but none of them took the bait. I can only assume they prefer living prey.”

“Living prey,” the Doctor repeated sceptically.

“When you’ve never actually seen them eat anything?” John continued, equally sceptical.

“There has to be a reason the rest of the marine life disappeared when they showed up!” Sibrillis insisted.

The Doctor’s brow furrowed further. “And you don’t think it have something to do with the bellowing of your machinery?”

“How do you mean?” Sibrillis asked.

“ _This_ ,” he shouted, pointing at the screen, “Is not the way natural creatures behave. They’re echoing the movements of your blasted machines.”

Sibrillis shook his head. “What does it matter?”

“What does it matter?! You don’t honestly consider it to be coincidence, do you? How long were you on this planet before you started the mining operations? Probably long enough to draw their attention. But you never wondered, did you? Why they suddenly went on the attack?”

“They’re the ones eating us, Doctor,” Sibrillis snapped.

“And as far as I’m concerned, they have the right!” The Doctor scraped his hands down his face. “Humans. You show up and you decide unilaterally any land not stamped with your seal is free for the taking, without any regard for existing biospheres. And this time—every time, really—you put your foot in something you don't understand and can't hope to scrape off. You came to this diverse ecosystem and decided it was ripe for the picking because you couldn’t be arsed to understand the creatures already here. Well too bad! Because they understand you on the most basic level. You're here, and you've disturbed their entire existence, but they don't want revenge. Oh, no. They want to incorporate you into it, but right at the bottom of the food chain.

“We're not going to punt you back to the top because you demand it. You haven't earned it. Either accept the fact you're the buffet for a ravenous group of resident beings, or pack up and find another place to call home."

“Stop blaming us for this.”

“Stop being so blameable!” John shouted, his own temper bubbling up. What right did Sibrillis have to yell at the Doctor for only pointing out the obvious? They should've picked all this up on their own, without the three of them having to touch down and practically wave banners telling them what they'd done wrong.

Sibrillis’ jaw set, his face paling with rage. “That’s it, then? You came to give us a good bollocking, and now you can pat yourselves on the back and go home? All well and good to decide you have all the answers, but how do you propose to get out of here?”

“The same way you will,” the Doctor said. “Stop the machines. Those creatures will almost certainly go back to their natural state of being, and we can all go home.”

Sibrillis paled, but rallied enough to sneer through it. “You'd doom us all to poverty.”

“Dead men can’t enjoy riches,” John stated.

“I think you know you’re out of options,” Rose said, keeping her tone neutral despite the tempers flaring from all corners. John admired her for it; he and the Doctor were more than capable of applying the stick if she’d offer the carrot when called for.

Face twisted in mute fury, Sibrillis stalked out of the command centre, the doors swishing shut behind him.

“I hope he doesn’t do anything stupid,” John commented mildly.

“He will,” the Doctor sighed. “They always do.” The Doctor turned his attention to the console behind them. “We need to shut this down."

Rose pulled out her sonic and began scanning the displays.

The Doctor immediately zeroed in on it. “What.”

“It’s my sonic,” Rose replied absently.

“ _What?_ ”

“I built it!” John chimed in, happy to be distracted from worrying over whatever unforgivable idiocy their accidental host was probably getting into.

The Doctor studied it as Rose considered her results. John had cobbled the design together from parts he’d scrounged at Torchwood, and capped it with a small pink crystal in the shape of a rose. When he’d presented it to her during their first Christmas together in Pete’s World, she’d actually cried and John panicked for all of thirty seconds until she'd finally grinned through her tears. While the functionality could never compare to Gallifreyan advances (the human brain suffered certain limitations preventing sudden direct psychic transference of a terabyte of information), they were nevertheless serviceable.

“The systems can all be shut down from here,” Rose confirmed. “But what about potential survivors? If we shut it all down, and those things disappear back to wherever they came from, there’ll be no way to track them.”

“We could set the Doctor's sonic to track the individual bio-signatures of one of the eryopses,” John offered. "Once the machines go off, we can follow them." His face twisted in disappointment. “Yours has superior tracking capabilities, and they move too fast for anyone to follow close behind. Since you’ll have the longest range…” Pulling teeth would’ve been less painful than suggesting his designs were in any way inferior. He chalked it up to the subpar materials he’d used to jury-rig the power supplies. Oooh, maybe he could convince the Doctor to take them on a short excursion to one of the better-stocked tech markets once they'd finished here.

The Doctor frowned. “Only if Sibrillis has another submersible handy, which, all things considered, he might not be willing to share.”

"Maybe not a submersible, but I saw rebreathers and a couple of DPVs down in the wet room we came through."

"We'll have to be ready the second the machines shut down," Rose mused. "They move too quickly for us to keep up with them if we dawdle."

He loved his intimate familiarity with the fierce joy in her eyes; the same one she got whenever she prepared to do something both incredibly noble and insanely dangerous. Such as when Torchwood fended off an attack from Cistaceoun fratboys who’d declared Earth prime picking for casual sport hunting. She’d tossed herself right into the fray alongside Jake and the rest of their team. She'd cheerfully allow the eryopses to drag her off in order to discover the location of colonists, if there'd been any doubt they'd be able to use the Doctor's sonic to track them. 

Her swimming skills surpassed his own, too. John could hold his breath longer—a product of muscle memory still clinging to the idea of a respiratory bypass—but she moved better underwater. Despite all his travels, he was originally based on the product of a predominantly arid planet.

"Do you think Sibrillis will turn off the machines? If he knows it will get his people back?" Rose asked.

"I'd like to think so, but the human capacity for greed still manages to surprise me after all this time," the Doctor said. His gaze gentled slightly when he turned to Rose. "Then again, so does the human capacity for compassion."

Rose squeezed the Doctor's shoulder. "I'll go talk to him." She kissed John's cheek and slipped out the door, back into the facility core.

Alone. Funny; John and the Doctor hadn't spent a minute alone together since he'd invited them on the TARDIS. John took for granted Rose would always be there as a buffer between them. It could’ve been intimidating, if more pressing business wasn’t commanding their attention.

The Doctor turned his sonic towards the eryopses, still swimming in their deliberate circle near the surface. The pattern bothered him even outside the explicit mimicry of the pistons driving away in the next room. But why? 

"I can't pick any of them out individually, but I've managed to hone in on the shared biological wavelengths the group is putting out. We should be able to track them without problem," the Doctor told him.

John turned a wide grin on him. "Ready to go for a swim, then?" 

Rose returned a few minutes later with Sibrillis, the latter apparently less inclined to to chuck them all out the exterior hatch, despite the mutinous set to his jaw.

“They took my sister, Julibee,” he begrudgingly ground out. “If you promise to bring her back, I’ll shut everything off.”

"The timing will need to be exact," the Doctor said at once, ignoring the defiant clench of Sibrillis' jaw. "Take too long and they'll swarm us, and possibly disable the DPVs the way they did the submersible. Not long enough and we'll be fighting to catch up with them the entire way back to their nesting grounds."

"What if all my people are dead?" Sibrillis demanded.

"We can tell they’re amphibious from the presence of legs and their ability to breathe outside of the water." John gestured to the eryopses. "Their gills are too small to support prolonged underwater distances, and they have to surface frequently. There's a good chance wherever they've taken the others, they have breathable air, at least."

"Doesn’t help the ones what drowned," Sibrillis said, still obviously unconvinced. After a long moment he spat out, "Fine. The system is designed to notify us when the external hatch opens. If you go out there, I'll stop the machines as soon as I get the signal."

John hooked a hand through the Time Lord's elbow before the Doctor could threaten quick, retributive action if Sibrillis failed them, and half-dragged him from the command centre back towards the wet room.

"He's as invested in getting them back as we are," Rose assured them as they crossed the corrugated metal flooring.

The Doctor appeared less than mollified, and John couldn't blame him. Humans were constantly disappointing him in the name of profit and greed. It occasionally shocked him how much time the Time Lord devoted to saving humanity as a species when they rarely lived up to his expectations.

Then again, John considered with a glance Rose's way, maybe it wasn't spectacularly surprising.

The rebreathers were as basic a system as the DPVs—small t-bars with sizable dual motors. Small but powerful, it seemed. Hopefully with enough speed to allow them to keep up.

They were in the water less than ten seconds before the thrumming of the mining equipment ground to a halt, and the eryopses at the surface above abruptly ceased their endless circling. They appeared momentarily confused, colliding with each other and sinking deeper before shaking off the effects. As one, they reoriented themselves and took off towards the underwater mountain range. John's assumption about their smallish gills proved correct; it limited their capacity for underwater breathing, probably more for aiding periods of prolonged oxygen deprivation. They surfaced every sixty seconds, and remained close to the surface.

The Doctor, Rose and John followed, the DPVs steady, albeit slower than the creatures they were chasing. They’d have lost track of them, if they’d not been overtaken by another school of the eryopses desperately cutting through the water behind them. They swept past the three of them, proof enough they weren't a dedicated predatory species. They couldn’t easily keep up with either school, but they got close enough to see where they were headed. The largest of the underwater mountains, reaching up past the surface in a small islet, where all the eryopses surfaced and disappeared.

The three of them, in silent agreement, surfaced once they reached the rocky mountainside, and walked the remaining distance to the raised ground.

* * *

Holes covered the islet, bringing to mind certain terrestrial ground-dwelling rodents, and a quick scan with his sonic confirmed to the Doctor a vast system of honeycombed burrows and tunnels existed below ground. And, more urgently, at least two dozen human life signs all collected in the largest of the caverns below.

"This one should be a straight shot to them," the Doctor said, gesturing to the largest of the tunnel entrances. It would be a tight squeeze; none of them were particularly wide through the shoulders, but save for the smoothed-down ground, sharp protrusions of rock stuck out in a pattern vaguely reminiscent of a cheesegrater.

"One at a time," he ordered, taking lead. He angled his shoulders carefully as he entered, creeping through as carefully as he could without getting himself caught on cheese-grater ridges. A sudden drop in temperature immediately stabbed into him through the wetsuit, the damp material doing little to stave off the cold. Rose's teeth began chattering behind him as they made their way further into the cave and the temperature continued to plummet.

Grunting from behind them caught his attention at the same time as Rose called his name. A nudge to his foot drew his gaze downwards, and he lifted his leg to carefully maneuver himself about, allowing the first of another school of the eryopses pass.

"Doctor," John called softly, shuffling about as a long line of them passed by. The creatures appeared content to ignore them marching past in a single line. When he accidentally moved his foot into the path of the last, it nudged at him over and over again until he lifted it back up, it's mouth with all those amazing teeth remaining resolutely shut. It paused once he moved, and took a moment to rub up against his leg before continuing onwards.

The narrow tunnel opened a few minutes later, bringing them to a rocky outcropping strut out across a wide cave, dozens of tunnels all meeting. And right in the middle sat the collection of missing colonists. They were surrounded, but alive, and the eryopses trundled along around them.

Rose’s sonic came out quicker than he could retrieve his own, and related the readings to them.

"Bioresonance," John repeated from behind her.

"Little wonder they felt the need to lash out, it must've been agonizing for them to have such an abrupt interruption to their natural state," the Doctor said with a nod. "The machines interfered with their natural wavelengths. They weren't attacking because they were hungry, they attacked because they were confused. I'm willing to bet they consider the colonists to be the same species, only injured and in need of care."

"Then we'll be able to get them out?" Rose asked.

"I'm more concerned about how we're going to get them all back to the colony," the Doctor replied. Despite being alive, the colonists were in rough shape; half-starved, and with injuries enough between them to make it apparent they'd either tried to fight being carried away, or failed to successfully avoid the sharper sections of tunnel wall as they'd been dragged along.

There wasn’t a natural way for them to move downwards, which left them to scale the sides of the cave, gripping the sharp outcroppings of stone and praying the wetsuit gloves wouldn’t tear with the strain of their weight scraping against the sandpapery surface. It certainly accounted for the varied abrasions present on the colonists.

The majority of the survivors were conscious and perked up as the Doctor, Rose and John approached. Identifying any severe injuries had to be their first priority. 

A young man, probably not even in his teen years, poked a slightly older girl in the side. “I told you they’d send help!”

“And now they’re stuck here, too,” she snapped back, swatting his hand away with an annoyed pinch to his mouth.

“I think you’ll find if you try to leave now, they won’t make any effort to stop you.” As he spoke, the Doctor watched the eryopses scurry about their lair, brushing up against each other and, occasionally, the colonists. A formerly absent sense of calm returned; an easy comfort now without anything inhibiting their ability to perceive their surroundings. All their combined chaos vanished when the mining equipment stopped disturbing the natural order.

One of the older women scoffed and waved an injured arm. “Tried already, thanks.” A makeshift bandage created from a shirt bound her arm, and he could tell from the brownish staining it barely managed to staunch the blood flow from whatever injury it protected.

“We’ve addressed the root cause of the issue,” the Doctor informed her. They all remained sceptical, and he sighed. “John, would you?”

John shrugged and scaled the wall as carefully as he could, the abrasive surface both a blessing and a hindrance as he blindly sought out footholds. Once he’d reached the top, he waved and disappeared back down the tunnel leading to the surface.

“How?” one of the older colonists asked.

“Your mining equipment drives them batty,” Rose replied, preempting the Doctor’s much more scientific explanation. She smirked at him knowingly.

“But we need the equipment,” another colonist protested.

“I think you’ll find you need the ability to walk on the ground unmolested makes up for it,” the Doctor replied. The woman huffed. At a glance, she reminded him of Sibrillis; the same almond-shaped eyes, long lashes and sharp chin. The sister, presumably. Julibee. An eryops strayed close to her side, and her hand came down on it absently, stroking it where its scales were thinnest at the base of its neck. Feline in its affections, it rubbed up against her whenever her ministrations ceased.

“We know where they live, now. Can’t we clear them all out?”

The Doctor scowled. “No, you cannot! These creatures are peaceful, living organisms who were here well before you lot decided to settle. You’ve no right to destroy them because they inconvenience your idea of progress.” The word came out sharp, the Doctor’s mouth twisting with disgust as he ground it out from between clenched teeth. “You came here for a new life, don’t make the same mistakes as the rest of humanity has in destroying an ecosystem because it inconveniences you. Find ways to live with them, or clear out.”

Disgruntled, weak-kneed and exhausted, Julibee hauled herself to her feet and managed to remain standing. “We need to get out of here,” she said, not obviously chastised, but apparently unwilling to argue with him. She turned her attention to one of the eryopses nearby, a reluctant fondness creeping into her eyes as it bumped up against a short stalagmite and rubbed its side against the rough rock. She paused in her attention to her companion, and it trilled at her, discontent, until she began stroking it once more.

“Finally, something sensible from one of you,” the Doctor muttered. 

Rose spoke over him, ever the peacemaker. “Does anyone need help?”

Before the group could respond, the eryopses all froze in place, their irises swallowed up by enormous white pupils.

The Doctor knelt down and placed his hand gingerly against the cave floor, glowering angrily. "Sibrillis has started up the equipment again."

John shouted down from above. "What do we do?"

“If we find a way to overwhelm the equipment’s effect on them…” he began. The Doctor whipped out his sonic. If interrupting their bioresonance caused the problem, there could be a way to find the correct wavelength and snap them out of whatever mesmerizing effect the mining facility inadvertently produced. As the sonic began cycling through the options, the eryopses grew agitated, shivering in annoyance. One of them—possibly the same one who’d given Julibee a cuddle—snapped at him, missing severing his leg at the knee by a hair's breadth. He lowered the sonic down to his side. Couldn’t rely on it, then.

The eryopses began trundling back up the rock, to the tunnel entrance. Presumably to seek out the equipment again, and anything else they could find to herd back to the cave. From the entrance, John squawked as one of them began urging him back down.

Fine, then. If the sonic proved ineffective, other strategies needed to be employed.

His mind flung back to the pistons’ repetitive ringing, and experimentally hummed deeper and slower. The eryopses would be picking up on the vibrations the equipment produced instead of the sound at this distance; they needed to be louder.

The eryopses slowed. He gestured at the colonists, at Rose, and waved his hands to conduct the most important lullaby they’d ever performed.

Rose caught on first, and began humming along with him. It took a moment for her to match his pitch, but she quickly began echoing it perfectly. One by one, the colonists joined in. The eryopses responded exactly how the Doctor hoped they would, returning to the middle of the cave and surrounding the small collection of humanity. The combined force of their voices drowned out the pistons. For this colony, at least. One of them dropped into Julibee’s lap and she oofed out a breath as it settled its weight against her.

“Keep humming,” the Doctor ordered. “John!”

“Doctor?”

“You need to go shut down the mining equipment.” The Doctor paused, and then, “Permanently this time, if you please!”

“It would be my absolute pleasure.”

He took off, leaving the Doctor, Rose, and a handful of colonists to continue their ministrations, drawing more and more of the eryopses out from their hiding places in the hive of surrounding tunnels. There were hundreds of them in different sizes, a robust social community. The ones who’d sought out the colonists must’ve been serving their inborn purpose in finding injured members and bringing them back home.

Rose leaned in close. “What if there’s more than one colony?” she asked quickly before returning to the chorus.

The Doctor frowned. If true, they were all in trouble.

* * *

Sibrillis waited for a short eternity. The fish-crocodile things had disappeared, true, but then so had the Doctor and his friends. The same as all the others. There’d been no sign of their return, or any of the once-teeming marine life outside the facility. Just him and the enormous weight of silence pressing down on him from all directions. He tried tooling around with random repairs, making sure things were oiled and ready to go once they'd sorted the situation.

But the silence. Seconds began to crawl by in the absence of sound. His breathing came louder to his ears. He could practically hear his blood pumping through his veins. The occasional groan of the facility settling made him jump and whip around, convinced imminent collapse would bury him in an underwater grave of metal and isolation.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t.

Starting the machines back up made perfect sense; it returned the familiar musical refrain of the equipment, a balm to his fractured nerves. It was for the good of the settlement! The Doctor and his friends were probably dead; torn apart by the things. He’d seen the teeth. And the way those things moved in the water. They probably hadn’t made it a mile before the creatures stripped all their flesh down to the bone. And damn the Doctor for blaming it on them! They'd only wanted to flourish on an unclaimed planet. Animals couldn’t own land. Not the way people did.

He leaned against the wall, enjoying the sound of the machines back up and running at capacity. Let the familiar thrum of the engines carry him away from the oppressive silence and back to something resembling peace.

It lasted all of thirty minutes before the notification panel beeped. The hatch was opening once again.

He pushed off the wall, confident the Doctor had returned to yell at him again. Or maybe the pretty girl who’d fished out the information she’d needed from him before running back to the Doctor with it.

Neither, as it turned out. The other man, John, who’d swum from the sinking submersible to the facility in sandshoes.

“Turn them off,” he said immediately.

Sibrillis shook his head, “No.”

“We’ve managed to contain those things, but it won’t last. They’re not aggressive. Your people—your sister—are alive, but if we want a hope in hell of getting them back safely then this all needs to be shut down.”

The silence loomed again, intimidating from where it’d hidden under the grind of the equipment. But Julibee lived. The one person who’d always helped keep the quiet at bay. Sibrillis slowly lowered his gun, and John launched into action, a thousand movements impossibly contained in one body. He levered his stick-thing at the nearest control panel, and the machines ground to a halt once more. Slower, this time, since they'd accessed it remotely instead of directly from the control panel. But they stilled all the same. Sweat broke across Sibrillis’ temple. He could talk, but his own voice never appealed to him.

Fortunately, John immediately began rambling, about bio-reso-whatever and eryopses and sustained multi-generational relationships between organisms and the Late Pleistocene and... goats? Sibrillis stopped listening, focusing on the sounds barking out of John’s mouth instead of the words themselves. He practically failed to notice John manoeuvering him towards the last sub until he'd shoved Sibrillis into the back seat.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Back to the colony. They’ve the boats we’ll need,” John replied.

He smoothly activated the controls to open the moonpool, but missed all the protocols preventing the water from flooding the facility. Sibrillis began to protest—all their equipment would be destroyed!—but quieted at the fierce glare John turned his way. He sat back, letting the continuous stream of words wash over him as the sea water washed over all their equipment.

Back to farming then.

At least the sound of the irrigation equipment would keep him company.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, the creature who’d attached itself to Julibee followed her back to the colony, and set up at the door of her hut until she deigned to let it inside. The Doctor watched with an entertained smirk, Rose at his side, as Julibee threw up her hands as it trotted through the door.

Vollister and Mireem, reunited with their husband, were less sanguine about the uninvited guests.

“They’ll eventually return to their cave, won’t they?” Vollister demanded.

“Perhaps,” the Doctor replied mildly.

“Maybe you’ve acquired a few pets,” Rose continued, her tongue peeking out of her grin.

“Their teeth are predominantly used for scraping lichen off rocks in their mountain ranges,” John said. “Hence the need for them to be both large and sharp. The snout shape isn’t ideal. I wouldn’t be surprised if they evolved away from it over the next few thousand years. If you cultivate the lichen nearby, you’ll be able to support domestication efforts. They seem very open to companionship.”

The Doctor could tell the moment they stopped listening, despite Mireem’s polite nodding.

Rose finally took pity on John’s overly polite audience. “Back to the TARDIS, then? Don’t think I’ve forgotten our shopping trip.” Rose picked at the wetsuit still clinging to her body, her other clothes left behind when John flooded the mining facility. The Doctor tried not to notice how it fit her curves. Tried not to notice her curves at all, really. He enjoyed moderate success. 

(The Doctor always lied).

“Back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor agreed.

“Could we bring one along?” John asked as they turned to head back down to the beach on the island’s opposite shore. “I always wanted a cat.”

“You did not!” Rose gasped with a laugh. “Do you remember when Tony brought the kitten home? You spent weeks trying to convince my mother it wasn’t sanitary to keep a cat box in the house…”

The Doctor’s step faltered, barely recovering quick enough to go unnoticed.

"Toxoplasmosis is no laughing matter, Rose Tyler!"

The nagging question plaguing his mind ever since Rose and John’s return surfaced yet again: How long had it been for them since Bad Wolf Bay?

And why did his senses all scream that it was less than a day?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos so far! They are gratefully accepted and very appreciated.


	4. The Fugitive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for implied canonical character death.

"She met her end bravely," Lieutenant Panema commented, as the young human stepped back through the doorway to the moment of her demise. Humans rarely acted with courage, he assumed, though his impressions of such primitive species arrived predominantly via hearsay. Beyond her, the Doctor stood frozen in the moment. He'd always found the Doctor intimidating beyond words, but the indescribable look in his eyes in that moment shook him far beyond any imagination. Relief washed through his veins when the door shut behind her and Time righted itself accordingly.

"Any sign of the missing TARDIS?" General Teniia’s question broke the uncertain silence. Considering all that had led to the moment of the human's return, she had to be satisfied with the resolution of the entire ordeal. This regeneration presented more stoically than the previous, though, and nearly impossible for Panema to read.

Panema shook his head. "No, General. She claimed to have no knowledge of its location, and we were unable to detect any sign of it when she arrived."

"You've cause to doubt?" Teniia’s eyebrow twitched curiously.

Panema frowned. His intuition indicated the human knew more than she let on, but couldn’t satisfactorily qualify the feeling. He finally settled on, "She smirked too much."

"Undoubtedly a side effect of time spent with the Doctor." Teniia left the extraction chamber at a brisk stroll, and Panema stepped quickly to keep up with her. The halls of the Citadel were near-empty at this time of night, but they brokered no delay in correcting the human's timeline when it had already been so incredibly interrupted.

"Any update on the thefts from the Vault?" she asked once they'd passed under the great arches towards the central hall.

"Yes, the Archivist finally provided a full inventory. Nothing stands out as particularly dangerous, though concerns have been raised about one of our extraplanar orb cages being removed." He couldn’t quite mask his distress when the mere concept of the orb cage elicited a shudder. Bad enough their confession dials could be used as prisons; an orb cage created a cell that existed outside of time and space. A torturous concept designed to punish Time Lords imprisoned within by denying them their very senses, even as their knowledge of their imprisonment plagued them and kept them trapped in a single moment _ad infinitum_. Such tortures were unbefitting of higher species; happy the day they'd fallen out of vogue.

Teniia snorted derisively. "Outdated pieces of rubbish. We haven't used them since before the War." Her step faltered, albeit briefly. "It wasn't active, surely?"

"If there was a Time Lord confined inside, we've lost all record of them," Panema replied hesitantly.

Teniia's lips pursed in thought. "It wouldn't do to have a fugitive at large without our knowledge."

Panema inclined his head, and allowed himself to be dismissed.


	5. Enclosure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings for (this is a doozy): Child abuse/neglect, animal death, alien perceptions of human sexuality (including a clinically discussed belief that any post-pubescent child should be able to bear children - nothing off-side happens, but be kind to yourself!)
> 
> I think that's it, but if I've missed anything please let me know.

At first glance, anyone with sense could describe the Doctor’s chalkboard doodles as incomprehensible; a series of dotted lines and barely-there connections and Venn diagrams. He shaded in a bubble or two, mind racing. History, especially human history, when examined through the lens of non-humans, existed as a series of exploitative actions taken against other Earth-based fauna.

Wolves domesticated into dogs and bred until barely recognizable, while their untamed counterparts were hunted down and killed for the severe transgression of being wild creatures.

Orcas, as intelligent as humanity yet incapable of expressing themselves in a fashion humans understood, captured and forced into miniscule tanks to promote a specific subset of the entertainment industry. Families forcibly separated and enslaved to serve the whimsy of their captors, infants never to know where they came from or the cultures from which their parents and grandparents were seized.

Multiple invasive species introduced to foreign environments either by accident, or purposefully in order to benefit human colonizers. Native fauna driven to extinction when resources became scarce or colonizers razed the ecosystem to accommodate their need for industry.

Humans regarded animals with the understanding non-human species were inherently lesser. Humanity assumed a speciesist manifest destiny precedenting an obligation to tame or destroy what could not be controlled. In the late Twenty-First Century, creatures thus far ignored or considered inferior reached back and demanded the same respect. Lines of communication opened, and the questions badgering humanity about each other suddenly extended to other species as well. Questions such as, “how can we repay millennia of exploitation?” and “what do we do now?”

While they struggled with these questions, other Earthbound species waited with baited breath for the answers.

* * *

Homeros’ rotten mood hung in the air like a bad smell.

Mara saw it in the way he restlessly paced his cage; from the angry tension in his shoulders and the occasional grunt issued from his scarred and pronounced snout. She ducked her head whenever he twitched her way. Making eye contact during these moments could be dangerous, even with the clear barriers between them. More than once he'd left stains when he'd headbutted it over and over again, trying to get to her. Every time the Beings washed the evidence away she still saw it in her heart.

The Beings had walked through in a steady stream throughout the day, which never did his temper any favours. They'd pause and stare at her in disgust—except for the Young Beings, who all lit up when they saw her—before swinging their attention to him. His impressive frame easily towered over Mara by five times, and his thick brown fur drew the eye of the Beings, who were for the most part all smooth and purple. His claws were longer, his teeth were sharper and he could occasionally be irritated to the point of roaring. The Beings loved his roar, and made happy noises whenever he screamed down the sky with unhappiness—clapped and cheered and looked for other ways to aggravate him. They littered his home with garbage they threw at him to prod him to action, and while The Being Who Watched scrabble to clear out the junk, she couldn’t ever keep up with the rate they were thrown.

Mara had cobbled together more of an understanding about the Beings than the others around her. She’d lived with her mother a while before coming to her current home, and her mother always impressed upon her that the Beings spoke their own language—one she could learn if she could stand to listen to them. Their voices hurt her head, and Mara could only bear it because she wanted to Know Things. She wanted to Know when she would be allowed to eat, and she wanted to Know if there would ever be Change. She wanted to Know about the world outside of her home; what it meant to see something besides walls. She wanted to Know if her mother still lived.

Although she rarely got her answers, listening to the Beings became important to her anyway.

"Do you see her! She’s so cute!"

"This is Mara. Her name means 'hope.'"

The chipper voice belonged to The Being Who Watched. The Being Who Watched took care of Mara and Homeros; she ensured they were fed and talked at them more than any of the others.

(She never realized Mara could understand what she said… if she did, perhaps her words would’ve been kinder).

Mara curled around her shapeless stuffed toy, absently stroking the soft spot between its ears. Though battered and worn in more than one place from being dragged around, she kept it close.

“Does she think that's her baby?"

"Maybe! Mara doesn't have any babies yet. Research suggests in the wild they can produce young as early as nine years old, this species generally needs a bonded mate in order to successfully reproduce. I’m excited to say we’re trying to expand our local breeding program, and we're working with other facilities to add more members to our family. It's important for us to ensure a constant focus on conservation, and this is just one more way we're protecting Mara and her kind."

While Mara once considered The Being Who Watched to be kind, the time for pretend had long passed. She’d heard The Being Who Watched complaining about the long hours it worked once when Mara got sick, and while Mara had wanted someone to hold her, the Being Who Watched refused outright. The Being Who Watched tried to make it up to her with sweet things and a soft voice, but Mara knew to be wary.

Mara held her toy tight and shuffled across her small home to consider the words, hiding in the only space away from the eyes of the Beings, a tight space between the one entrance to her home and the small play structure she’d long outgrown.

'Breeding.' She’d never heard the word. She sounded it out to herself silently, puzzling over it. She knew 'family.' The Beings used 'family' to describe Mara and Homeros and all the other creatures kept in containment around them. More members... did they mean more like her? She couldn’t be the only one of her kind. She dreamt of her mother crying when they pulled her away and stabbed her with a needle, and ever since then any other things like her only existed in her memories.

'Breeding.' It could be good, if there might be more things like her.

She pulled herself up onto the playplace and perched on the top, watching the Beings pass by. A few of them lit up when they saw her, and waved their hands wildly. It made her heart speed up in fear, though she waved back anyway, to the excited squeals of the smaller Beings.

The gentle breeze flowing through the open top of her home alleviated the heat today; sometimes, she could do nothing except hide in the meagre shade cast by her playplace to escape the ruthless sun. The seasons were slowly changing. The sky became darker earlier, and sometimes the cold nights forced her to climb to the top of her playplace and sit near the vent above the Being’s doorway, seeking out what little warmth it put out.

The stream of Beings petered out as the day passed, and once the last one disappeared, Mara picked up her toy and crossed to peer in on Homeros. Her home was half the size of Homeros', though both were flat and bare. There were other things around them, separated from them by the path the Beings walked. She never saw the other things, despite the occasional chattering filtering through the open air between their homes. Their noises kept her awake at night the same way a scary dream made her chest feel tight.

Homeros' poor mood passed, and slumped against their shared wall. Mara crept over and sat down next to the wall, imagining the softness of his fur. He must be warm all the time.

"Breeding," she said, rolling her tongue around the words. Homeros' ear twitched. "Family."

Homeros snorted and rolled over. He did not speak her mother's language. He occasionally attempted to mimic the sounds the Beings made, which they all thought to be a wonderful trick. The Being Who Watched always said it drew _revenue_. If he could speak a real language, he chose not to.

Mara stroked her toy and eventually wandered away from Homeros. She absently climbed up and down the playplace, her mind wandering. She knew every bit of the structure blindly, swung on it and played in it each day. She climbed it all by memory, now. Her palm rubbed against a rough patch she'd chewed away once to relieve pain in her teeth. It annoyed the Beings and earned her another needle. She'd woken up to an ache in her jaw and some of her teeth gone.

The day’s warmth lingered as night fell, and she curled up against the barrier next to Homeros, holding her toy and dreaming of his fur.

* * *

“Do we have to get rid of them?” Rose asked. The smallish creature curled into her arms and yawned. Rose immediately cooed over it with adoring eyes.

“We cannot keep lanikibos on the TARDIS,” the Doctor told her, trying and failing to sound authoritative when two of the animals were balanced in his arms, each of them vying for his attention. One of them nibbled on his coat, demanding affection with little tugs of the head. The lot of them were, on average, no larger than toy poodles, and vaguely resembled furry hippopotami. “These are wild creatures and need to be returned to their natural habitat.”

John, the Doctor noticed, happily ignored the conversation entirely in favour of allowing four more of the things to cuddle into his chest as he lay contently on the gangway above them, idly stroking the one curled into his neck. Their stupendously soft fur helped them run hot; small, soft little heating bags radiating comfort and contentment via latent psychic projection. Little wonder they’d been popular at the black market the three of them had taken pains to break up.

(Little wonder they were popular with John and Rose.)

“They’re adorable,” Rose whispered, her voice a tad fuller of awe than the Doctor usually preferred when his companions ran across fuzzy lifeforms. The one in her arms tilted its head up and bumped her chin with its forehead, a deepthroated chirrup reverberating far enough to fill the air around it. The others joined it in song and Rose giggled with starry-eyed enchantment.

“Natural. Habitat.”

Rose pouted. Rather than giving in, the Doctor set the TARDIS to head back to the lanikibos’ home planet around a time where they could interact with the locals, a relatively advanced society who’d colonized all livable planets in the local system. The TARDIS would be arriving prior to their mastery of interstellar flight, though a robust exchange of goods and materials still existed between the planets.

The lanikibos were native to one of five planets orbiting the local circumstellar habitable zone, and the last of the five to be colonized. If memory served, as it often did, humanity settled the planet before the locals and established their own colony a full century ahead of their would-be neighbours.

When the TARDIS landed, Rose and John helped him shoo the lanikibos out the door, despite the vaguely mutinous set to their respective jaws.

“We can’t keep even one?” Rose asked.

“If we did, one of you would have to stay aboard the TARDIS at all times. This species requires constant psychic reassurance. If they aren’t around each other, they’ll attempt to bond to the next best thing.” As if to demonstrate his point, the lanikibos all bounded up together in a small pile a short distance from the TARDIS doors. “It could get to the point where they become so dependent that being separated would become physically painful, not to mention emotionally and mentally damaging.”

“Sounds like speculation from a man who doesn’t want to deal with litter-training,” John chuckled, nudging the last of them out the door. It scurried over to lunge into the pile with the rest of them. He stepped in between them to rest one arm around Rose’s waist and settle into the Doctor’s side. The Doctor slowly acclimatized to the casual touches, though he would still twitch in surprise every so often. Both John and Rose highly valued physical touch, and he found himself willing to be accommodating. He wondered if he’d been the same way for Clara; for whatever reason, his protests against such touches rang hollow to him these days.

“It’s beautiful here,” Rose commented.

Indeed, the planet proved magnificent. The inhabitants strategically utilized the topography to determine where best to settle themselves to avoid unnecessary environmental impact. They mastered lithium-based energy relatively early, too, resulting in miniscule amounts of atmospheric pollutants and leaving the sky a brilliant blue. Sadly, the proximity to the local asteroid belt, largely composed of matricite deposits, wasn’t lending to psychic resonance; he could feel the pulse of it against his own senses.

“Nice day for a picnic,” Rose suggested slyly, glancing at the Doctor and John out of the corner of her eye.

“If you’re planning to tempt one of those things back aboard with food, I’d recommend against it,” the Doctor told her. "No children, not pets."

“I would never,” Rose lied through sparkling eyes.

“She absolutely would,” John chuckled.

Rose grinned, “I could always get a purse to carry it around it. Take it everywhere.”

“Horrifying,” the Doctor said, deadpan.

Rose laughed and turned, heading back into the TARDIS to collect whatever food she deemed picnic-appropriate. John regarded the Doctor sidelong with a brilliant smile.

“They were especially interested in those thyme-lemon biscuits we picked up last time we were on Earth. You’d better go make sure she doesn’t sneak any into the basket, or we really will be stuck bringing one or two of them with us.”

The Doctor sighed. “Good thinking. Especially since I already have the two of you to deal with.”

“We aren’t pets!” John called after him as the Doctor headed back to the galley to make sure the leftover lemon-thyme biccies were included. Or, at least, enough for him.

When he and Rose emerged twenty-two minutes and fifty-six seconds later, carrying a heavy-laden basket between them, John was gone.

* * *

The day started off hot, hot, hot. The Being Who Watched arrived early, and filled up a shallow pool with water for Mara to splash in. She carefully put her toy on the playplace and jumped in, laughing loud enough to startle Homeros. She loved the water, and she rarely got to play in it. During her distraction, the Being Who Watched put a small pile of food in the corner for her to eat. Mara ignored the food. Who could be hungry when they could play in water?

She spent her day splashing about, then crawling out of the pool to dry off in the heat, and then jumping right back in. The few Beings who braved the heat enjoyed watching her more than Homeros, grumpy and lazy. For all she loved the idea of his fur, she wouldn't enjoy it at all in the heat.

The Being Who Watched milled around outside their homes, waiting for the Beings to come and talk to them. The Being Who Watched appeared bored, shot an irritated hiss her way when Mara failed to return a wave.

"I read somewhere Mara's kind can live up to one hundred and thirty cycles in the wild," one Being said, noisily drinking from a large cup.

"Probably untrue, I’m sad to say," the Being Who Watched said. "We don’t know much about them before the periods of overhunting, and there aren’t sufficient populations for us to confirm that sort of speculation. They tend to live much longer in habitats such as Mara's, since they get proper care and an uninterrupted supply of food."

The Being tapped on the barrier and Mara's head shot up. The sound bounced around her home, louder as it echoed off the walls. The Being jumped back when Mara fixed her eyes directly on it, relieved when she returned her attention to the pool.

"Eerie, how closely they resemble us."

"There are significant differences, obviously," the Being Who Watched said. "A number of discredited scientists claimed to observe signs of basic intelligence."

The Being laughed. "Let's hope not. I can't imagine I'd appreciate being stuck in a zoo my whole life."

“Mara's a special little girl, and a valued member of our family. With her kind on the brink of extinction, we’ve been fortunate to have stewardship of one of the last remaining members.”

The Beings' used the word ‘zoo’ instead of 'home.' 'Home' felt better. Her mother used the word ‘home.’

Eventually, once the other Beings all went away, the Being Who Watched came and took her pool away. Mara sighed unhappily as the Being Who Watched emptied the water out on the ground and carried it back to the door. Her lower lip quivered as she poked at the wet ground, the water drying too fast in the heat. With a sigh, Mara wandered over to her food.

She frowned at the smooth pink lump sticking up out of it.

She called out in alarm when she pulled it out of her dish.

"It's a prenatal vitamin," the Being Who Watched told her. "Just eat it, Mara."

Mara frowned at it and put it down far away from the rest of her food. It probably tasted yucky.

The Being Who Watched sighed. "Eat it or we're going to have to give you a needle."

Mara frowned harder. She hated needles. Resentfully, she picked up the ‘prenatal vitamin’ and put it in her mouth. When she chewed, it tasted worse than she imagined. Even her bitter water tasted better, and she half-drowned herself in her desperation to swallow away the taste.

"You're such a baby," the Being Who Watched laughed. "Hard to believe you'll have your own baby soon."

Baby baby baby. She committed the word to memory. Baby.

She picked at the meat before giving up on it as having spent too much time in the heat, and saved her fruit for last despite the heat pressing into her in unquenchable thirst—and returned to the wall she shared with Homeros.

"Baby," she said to him. "Breeding."

Homeros snorted, rubbing his nose up and down against the barrier between them. He’d scraped it raw. She wanted to pet it and make it feel better. If he didn’t stop it, they’d tie him up again.

No one mentioned anything more about 'Baby' or 'Breeding' for a long time. The Beings came and went, as usual, and the Being Who Watched kept giving her more pink lumps. If she swallowed them whole and then drank a lot of water, they tasted less yucky.

Then, one morning, the Being Who Watched began nattering the second she stepped into Mara's home.

"Mara! It's so exciting! We've found a match for you!" She bared her teeth the way the Beings did sometimes when they were happy. "We captured him in the wild this morning! Don't be scared, though. We'll make sure he doesn't hurt you. They told me he was very gentle."

A match.

Another... thing?

Match. Baby. Breeding.

An unfamiliar buzz remained in the air after the declaration of the Match. Something electric and a little scary. Homeros recognized it, as well, and paced the barrier between them, watching the entrance to her home.

When it finally opened, the Being Who Watched and several other Beings entered. And with them came another thing. A match?

The match stood head and shoulders over Mara. She shrank back, holding her toy tightly. The Beings used the long poles with wire looped around his neck to keep him still. He glanced around her home impassively, until his eyes landed on her.

His face twisted up in scary fury. Mara wanted to climb up her playplace and hide, but even at its highest point it wouldn’t be any safer: his arms were too long.

"No," the match whispered. Mara’s heart leapt. He spoke her mother's language! "You bastards. She's a child. _She's a child_."

He began thrashing in their hold and the Beings began yelling. One of them grabbed for a pouch at its side and whipped out a gun. They'd used a gun on Homeros once, when he’d attacked another Being and tried to leave his home. It cracked loudly when it fired, and the sound could hurt things. Homeros had been hurt. Homeros had been hurt and bled and slept while they cleaned up what remained of the Being who’d gotten in his way when he’d attempted to escape.

Mara screamed and ran to hide under her playplace. Maybe if she stayed small, she wouldn't be hurt.

The gun made its loud sound, and a match fell down. The Beings carefully unwrapped the wire from his neck and slipped out the entrance. She peered at him through the bars in the structure, her heart hammering wildly in her chest. His breath still came in measured rises and falls, but his eyes were closed.

She crept out from the structure and, clutching her toy tightly, moved slowly to the barrier. Homeros rested up against it, and stared at a match with puzzlement.

"Match," she repeated to him. "Baby. Breeding."

Homeros did not reply.

Mara settled down to wait.

* * *

John came to with the cotton-mouthed feeling of the recently tranquilized, and groaned to himself, scraping his cheek against cool concrete. What’d hit him? He vaguely remembered wandering away from the TARDIS in search of a half-decent picnic site, the lanikibos trailing after him. Things went silent, there’d be some sort of commotion and then…

They hadn’t drugged him immediately. He’d tried to convince the people who’d grabbed him he wasn’t a threat. The tall, lavender-skinned bipeds with vertical eyes and three slits in the place of nostrils were otherwise human-looking. Typically, he’d’ve _done something_ in order to be seized by local authorities. No to mention the general understanding between law enforcement and private persons that, in general, when they decided to arrest a person, the subject tended to be told _why_.

He vaguely remembered them saying something about mating, and laughing to himself because they were in for a world of surprise if they decided _that_ was happening. And then, after hours of being shuffled about in an overheated vehicle, he’d been shoved in here. He vaguely remembered having somewhat of a fit. Couldn’t quite put his finger on why.

His head screamed with irritation, and gentle movements became the name of the game. John managed to roll over onto his back to see the impossibly blue albeit unusually distorted sky above. It took him a moment to realize his eyes weren’t the problem; the fishbowl-shaped cage left only a span of a few feet across open to the air. His gaze trailed down the curved sides until they opened to a viewing platform taking up at least two-thirds of the area around him, currently empty of occupants. Initial estimates put the entire space at only about fifty metres squared.

A quiet murmur from his right drew his attention and John twisted around.

A young girl peeked out from behind a rusted metal slide. Probably only twelve, if she was a day, with piercing sea green eyes. Real fear darkened her eyes—of him?—and before he could speak a word she darted back into the sad little climbing frame taking up a generous amount of the tiny space in which they found themselves.

Ah. The reason for his outburst came reeling back to him. Anger bubbled up in his breast once more, and he ruthlessly tamped it down. He’d scared enough for one day.

He struggled with his temper, from time to time. Rose helped him substantially in finding ways to reign it in, yet there were still times… well. He found it hard to blame the Doctor for leaving him in Pete’s World. When they’d shoved him in here, and he realized what they expected of him, he wanted to do them harm.

The little girl still watched him, and John mustered up the energy to speak.

"Hello." He groaned as the pounding in his head worsened. Talking. Terrible evolutionary strategy, really. Vocal communication was completely overrated. He wished he could take back every egregious syllable to ever fall from his mouth.

Her head reappeared from behind the slide. When John gently pushed himself up to sitting, groaning when the pounding in his head intensified, she ducked back again. What’d they dose him with? He’d dealt with his fair share of tranquilizers after joining Torchwood with Rose and they’d never hit him this hard before.

"Sorry," he called, gently. "Are you all right?" Speaking drilled hot spikes into his brain, but better his pain than allowing her to remain terrified.

“Hello,” the little girl whispered. She spoke English, or the TARDIS’ telepathic field extended further than he’d realized. He’d bet on the former; one of the TARDIS’ many odd quirks translated most sentient beings' speech to sound as though they’d learned English somewhere in the Commonwealth.

“I’m John,” he said.

“John,” she repeated. She crept closer, hugging her battered stuffed toy close to her chest. “The Beings call me Mara.”

“ _That_ is a lovely name,” John told her. She mustered up a weak smile. “Where are we, Mara?”

“Home.”

Right. “And where is home?”

“The Beings call it a zoo.”

Well, initial impressions depressingly confirmed, then. Thank goodness Jackie stayed in Pete’s World. She’d break a hip laughing over the hearty delight in hearing about this.

He managed to push himself into a sit to get his bearings, and Mara scampered back behind the slide, hiding away from him as he tried to order his thoughts. His head continued pounding, and his tongue sat about six sizes too big in his mouth. Flat concrete filled the majority of the space with only a depressingly small stretch of grass separating it from the smooth glass walls surrounding them. A long indent, filled with water, stretched out nearby. He pulled himself over to it and scooped a few handfuls into his mouth, keenly aware his audience of one watched as he did so. She crept closer and tentatively tried cupping her hands to drink after observing him a few moments, then gave it up as inefficient and bent over to drink directly from the source.

“Are there any other humans here, Mara?” he asked. He couldn’t recall much about the aliens who’d grabbed him, beyond the impression they’d been completely ignoring all attempts to communicate.

“‘Humans,’” she repeated. She muttered a quiet litany beneath her breath, a string of individual words he couldn’t pick out. “What is ‘humans’ means?”

“You and I. We’re humans.” Or close enough, anyway. He might be making sweeping speciesist assumptions based on first impressions. Too bad he had limited resources to work with. He’d left his sonic back on the TARDIS, assuming Rose would bring it along when she and the Doctor came back with their picnic. Unfortunate. Then again, he’d been stripped down to his pants, and chances were high he wouldn’t have kept it anyway.

“Humans,” she said again. “Just me is humans.” Mara snuck closer still, dragging a small stuffed toy along the ground behind her. She sat down nearby; close enough to allow him a decent view of her, and far enough away to escape if he grabbed for her. She was thin, even for a relatively tall specimen of pubescent human, fortunately without obvious signs of physical abuse. Clothed, at least, and he took a moment to make sure their captors left him dressed as well. They’d stripped him of everything save his pants and vest shirt. At least circumstances weren’t as mortifying as they could have been. Hopefully they hadn’t searched his pockets; he shuddered to think of what they’d find.

“Are you really from the wild?” she asked. Her grasp of language wasn’t inherently broken, then, merely missing a few odds and ends.

“Only technically,” he replied. He tried to stand and hit the ground again, hard, when his legs buckled. “I travelled here with my friends.”

“Friends,” Mara repeated. “What is ‘friends’ means?’”

“People I love.” She blinked. “My family.”

“Family,” she repeated, satisfied. “The Beings call us family. All things here at the zoo.” She flitted hummingbird-quick over to the side of the fishbowl, pressing her hand against the side. “Homeros is family.”

John’s eyes bugged out of his head, quite beyond his control. ‘Homeros’ proved at least six hundred kilos of terrifying teeth and fur vaguely resembling a barbastelle bat crossed with a kodiak bear. It also snoozed through introductions. Terribly underfed, too. Great beasties of his stature should’ve bandied about another half-tonne of weight at least.

“Does Homeros talk?” he asked.

Mara shook her head. “He can’t mimic their sounds. I can!” She puffed out her chest, proud. Then shrank again, disappointment flooding her eyes. “They say it’s a good trick, and then they don’t listen.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

John tried and failed to keep his face from falling. Apparently unhappy with the turn of conversation, Mara hoisted herself up to the top of the climbing frame. She settled at the top, legs hanging free from the cross-hatch of bars, watching him.

“The Beings will be here, soon,” she told him, gesturing towards the viewing platform. He’d slept through to early morning judging from the greyish tint in the sky. Meant he’d been missing a whole day, at least, and hopefully a rescue burgeoned on the horizon. “Food soon, too.” Her nose scrunched. “I hope there’s no prenatal vitamin.”

John’s hand balled into a fist at his side, though he managed to keep himself from scaring her again by the narrowest margin.

‘Soon’ meant a little over half an hour. In the time, Homeros roused himself and took a few shambling laps around his habitat. He ignored John, and though he acknowledged Mara with a rumbling growl when she darted over to their shared wall to speak with him. In all probability, not an intelligent species. (John would withhold judgement on their captors for the time being.)

When the Beings came, there were two of them. One held a gun, and John put up his hands to stay well back as they entered the cage; he had less than zero desire to deal with another round of tranquilizers. They emerged from an opaque portion of the glass wall, though John couldn’t see an obvious means of opening it from the inside.

The second Being dropped a few bucketfuls of slop into a large feeding dish, and filled the in-ground trough with water.

“I hope you two are getting along!” the smaller of the two Beings—probably female, or equivalent—stated cheerily.

“The Being Who Watches,” Mara told him. She leaned closer to whisper in John’s ear. “Don’t trust her.”

“They’re communicating, Loskoos,” the male Being said. He sounded uneasy at the idea.

“More than one study suggests they’re capable of their own language,” the Being Who Watched—Loskoos—told him, her tone still bright and sunny.

“Don’t use your tour guide voice on me. I don’t care.” He kept the whole of his attention trained on John.

“I think it’s fascinating! Who knows what they’d say to us if we could understand them?” Loskoos said.

“How about ‘let us the hell out of here’?” John suggested.

They ignored him. Well, they ignored his words. Both of them fixed keen interest on him.

“I want to check Mara to make sure she’s not hurt,” Loskoos said.

Mara looked at John, suddenly wary. “Would you hurt me?” she asked.

“Never,” John promised.

She shrugged and slipped down off the climbing frame when Loskoos snapped her fingers. When Mara approached, Loskoos gave her a small cube she immediately popped into her mouth and chewed up as Loskoos poked and prodded her.

“No signs of injury,” Loskoos said. “That’s something. I couldn’t detect signs of mating activity on the security feed, either, but he only woke up recently. Maybe we’ll see movement tonight.”

“Not bloody likely,” John huffed.

“What about the male?” the other one asked. John decided he would henceforth be referred to as ‘Chet’; he’d never met a decent Chet.

“We’ll start working with him once he’s settled in. Give them a chance to get used to each other,” Loskoos replied. She reached into her pocket and produced another cube, tossing it John’s way. He caught it out of the air and sniffed it. Truth be told, it smelled vaguely of wine gums. He hesitated to put it in his mouth without checking the chemical makeup. Mara’s consumption indicated they were non-toxic, at least. “Go ahead,” Loskoos said, encouragingly. “They’re Mara’s favourite.”

Mara shrugged noncommittally. “They’re better than the other food.”

John rolled his eyes as he shoved it in his mouth. Comparable to soft taffy, it’s bland taste came across as the sad offspring of starfruit and turmeric. He grimaced around it, and Loskoos grinned, well pleased with him.

“Good! That’s excellent!” She took a step closer. “Can I touch you?”

“Like hell,” John muttered, drawing back. Could the climbing frame support him? Probably not… otherwise he’d be up in a moment to stay away from her.

She pulled another candy from her pocket. “You can trust me.”

“You can’t trust her,” Mara argued, even as she submitted to allowing Loskoos to pat her head affectionately.

“Come on,” Loskoos said, encouragingly. Her smile shifted to something plastic and her eyes hardened. “Let me pet you, you stupid animal.”

Mara sighed. “You should do what she says. Otherwise, we don’t get fruit at dinner.”

Oh. Well. If it involved _fruit_.

John remained still when Loskoos approached him, and tried not to cringe when she ran rough fingers through his hair. Small protruding nodules on her fingers caught and pulled at his scalp, and he winced through it. His good behaviour earned him a treat, though there existed not a chance in hell he’d eat it from her hand. He plucked it from her open palm.

“Good,” she repeated.

How utterly humiliating.

She tilted his head back to check his neck, and tutted over whatever she found there; bruising from the snare pole with which they’d hauled him in, he decided. When he submitted to her prodding, she offered him another treat and then rejoined Chet back at the entrance.

“He appears healthy enough.” She grinned. “I can’t wait for pups! They’re adorable when they’re little.”

She ignored his glare as she and Chet shuffled out.

Mara returned to their slop pail to pick through the humble offerings: wilted vegetation, greying meat, an actual raw fish which Mara shoved in her mouth before—with a guilty glance in his direction—pulling it out from between her teeth and offering it to him.

“Please go ahead,” John said. He dropped the two candies next to her and she scooped them up immediately. He poked through the contents until producing something akin to a carrot and taking a reluctant bite. Raw starch coated his mouth and he scraped his tongue against his teeth. “I’m infinitely glad zoos get abolished on Earth. As soon as I’m out of here, I’m going to insist the Doctor take me back and let me get in on the letter-writing campaign.” Hell, he’d _start_ the letter-writing campaign a full half-century early if the Doctor would let him get away with it. Only organizations with realistic focus on education and conservation. None of this performative display rubbish.

“Out?” Mara said. Whether she was happily ignoring the rest of his words or choosing to focus on the one, he couldn’t tell.

“Out,” John nodded. He finished the carrot and returned to the stale-tasting water. “My friends are going to come and find me.”

“The Beings will keep you here,” Mara replied matter-of-factly.

“They won’t,” John insisted.

Mara frowned and forlornly returned to her perusal of their meal. He managed to stuff down a radish-tasting gourd before accidentally stumbling across something tasting close to a pear and spending the next five minutes trying to wash the taste of it out of his mouth.

“You know, we could bring you with us,” John offered tentatively.

Mara’s attention swung around to Homeros at his words, her face drawing in grim consideration. “It’s not a good idea to try to get out.”

“I promise, whatever happened to him, it won’t happen to us.”

“What is ‘promise’ means?” she demanded.

“It means when I say something, I’ll do it, no matter what.”

“Promise,” she murmured under her breath. She repeated a steady mantra of words, none of which he caught, before shaking her head dismissively. “I don’t like this promises. It won’t work.”

They fell into silence.

Not twenty minutes later, a garbled announcement sounded from somewhere outside their pen, the muted words swallowed up by the glass surrounding them.

“Time,” Mara said, simply.

John sighed. Time, indeed.

The locals arrived first in a thin flock to gawp at them, the crowd slowly swelling in size as the day passed. The insufferable heat quickly warmed the water in their trough from cool to tepid to unpleasantly warm. Though there proved no shade to speak of, John hesitated to crawl under the slide with Mara, in case he scared her once more. She honestly seemed at a loss as to what to do with him, content to go about her day offering stilted waves to the locals and swinging on a climbing frame much too small to provide much in the way of a challenge.

“What do you do all day?” John asked, bored within fifteen minutes.

Mara shrugged. “Play. Wave. The Beings are happy when I wave.” To prove her point, she flapped a hand at the crowd. They replied with a collective gasp and a flurry of activity as they pulled out their cameras to snap pictures.

John stood—his shaky knees still held him well enough—and the chattering of the crowd rebounded through their cage as they watched him. He crossed to the door through which Loskoos and Chet entered, checking for any sign of a hinge or unlocking mechanism. Nothing. He sniffed unhappily.

Loskoos soon joined the crowd, weaving in and out between bodies to field questions with hopelessly incorrect or fabricated answers.

“Why is their skin in layers?”

“Since humans don’t have a lot of natural protections themselves they use articles they scrounge out of their environment to help them. When we found Device in the wilderness, he wore far more layers. Since we provide for them here, he won’t need them.”

Ugh.

“Why are they different colours?”

“Great question! Mara’s hair is lighter than Device’s, which we believe helps parents identify young humans. Her hair will become darker as she gets older.”

Please.

“Why don’t they move around much?”

“There’s lots of information around humans indicating they are a predominantly sedentary species. Even outside of captivity, they rarely move more than a few feet from their nests at any given time.”

Utter falsehood. Well. Mostly.

“How do you put up with this?” John demanded.

Mara swung upside down from the frame. “What else is there?”

How enormously depressing. This planet now topped the list of places to Never Visit Again.

How could this even have happened? The Doctor mentioned a human colony—surely there should have been significant evidence pointing to humanity as being a sapient species? How could the locals unilaterally decide against the evidence to the contrary? From what he’d gathered, humans only existed now in zoos such as this one. Where did the colony go?

One thing remained certain: the locals were in for a world of surprise when they finally mastered intergalactic flight and found out how pervasive humanity truly was throughout the universe as a whole.

He kept an eye out for Rose and the Doctor, fully expecting them to appear at any moment to get him out. Rose would obviously be treated with the same indignities which he currently ‘enjoyed,’ but surely the Doctor, with his advanced physiology, would be treated as a peer.

The morning passed, and as the heat increased—made worse by the lack of air circulation around them—John found himself completely enervated by the swelter.

“Here,” Mara whispered, dropping down next to him. She ran over to the trough and shoved her doll inside. When she returned, she squeezed the tepid water over his head. “Drink more.”

“Thank you,” John murmured.

Mara’s brow acquired the small line to accompany her confusion. “What is ‘thank you’ means?”

“It’s a vocal expression of gratitude.” Mara blinked, and John wracked his brain for a way to articulate it better. “When you thank someone, it’s because you’re happy they’ve done something nice, and you want them to know how much you like it.”

Mara pondered this, absently stroking her battered stuffed toy.

“You never said ‘thank you’ to the Being That Watches when she gave you a treat,” she finally said, her tone marginally accusatory.

“Well, I’m not overly happy to be trapped here, even if they do give me treats, and I don’t feel much like thanking them for it.” Regardless of the quality of the sad taffy, he refused to be their dancing monkey.

Mara looped an arm around one of the bars and pulled herself into the meagre shade offered by the slide.

John continued scanning the crowd, desperately hoping for a flash of blonde or grey hair, and settled himself in to wait.

* * *

John wasn't as scary as Mara first feared. When the Beings wandered out, and they received their second food, some of the cross lines around his mouth faded away.

The Being That Watched tutted over them and then left for the evening, and everything quickly quieted.

For a little while, anyway.

"How long have you been here, Mara?" John asked as he picked his way through their food.

Mara shrugged. "Since they took me away from my mother." John's expression fell and Mara hesitantly patted his hand. "Did they take you from your mother?"

"I never had a mother." His face twisted up. "Well." He waved a hand "No technically. But I had a mum. A cracker of one, too. Bossy in the way all good mums should be. Always kept jam around for me." He smiled. The smallest ever twitch of lips. Mara found herself smiling right back.

"I remember my mother," Mara admitted. She stuffed a piece of meat in her mouth and then spat it out again right away when she tasted rot. Sometimes the Beings forgot to check for these things. "She had gentle arms. And she sang a song to me at night.” Mara’s smile fell away. “I can never remember the words."

"How did it go?" John asked.

Mara hummed what little of it she remembered. As she did, John began humming along and Mara swung about to stare at him with wide-eyed joy. He gestured to her to keep going, and as she did he began to sing!

"My only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey..."

Experimentally she shifted closer to him, and John offered her another warm smile.

"My mum sang that to my little brother whenever he got sick," John said.

"What is 'brother' means?" Mara demanded.

"A male relation spawned from one or more of the same parents.” Mara blinked and John tugged on his ear. “Ummm... how to define it without using it? My mum—well, my wife's mum, who pretty much became my mum eventually—and her husband, who was sort of like my dad though we only ever called him Pete, had another... well. They had _a_ child, considering they technically together never had a first together... You know, my family situation’s complicated, not sure I'm the best one to explain it."

"'Family,'" Mara sniffed, losing interest. “I know family.”

"You know, family—traditionally—means something quite different." He popped another bit of veg into his mouth and settled back on his bum. "Family, to me anyway, means people that love you, and are willing to let you build a place for yourself in their hearts." Mara shifted closer. "It's getting yelled at for tracking mud in through the front door, and accidentally flooding a year seven classroom with purple foam, and arguing rugby versus footy." His smile changed, and it made Mara's stomach dance. "It's clothes left all about the floor. And undrinkable tea." He gestured upwards, where the first few stars were beginning to peek through the slow-darkening sky. "It's someone who gives you the stars."

Mara pulled her hand back away from his, which startled him out of his babbling.

"I don't have family, then," she whispered.

"I'll find you one," John said immediately. It sounded like the words he said earlier. A promises. Mara wanted to believe him.

"Is... 'baby' means family too?" The answer scared her. She couldn’t say why.

John's eyes crinkled at the corners. "It doesn't have to, no."

Mara nodded to herself. "What is 'match' means?"

"It's a small stick with a red top that lets you start fire."

"What is—"

"It's an instance of combustion where ignited materials mix with oxygen to create a source of heat and light."

The Being That Watched made no sense sometimes.

John, Mara unilaterally decided, wasn't scary anymore. And Mara wasn't afraid. At least, not _very_ afraid. She twitched closer, until she sat only a finger length away. The cold scared away the heat lingering from the day, and John felt very warm.

"I wish we has fire right now," she said.

"It is getting chilly, yeah." He held up his arm, and Mara tucked herself into his side. "Thank you, Mara."

Mara frowned. "I didn't do anything."

"You really did."

He nudged the bowl closer to her. There was still fruit left, and John let her eat it all!

* * *

“All right,” the Doctor said, focusing on the TARDIS terminal. “We’ve determined the locals—”

“Arseholes,” Rose muttered.

They’d spent two days finding the nearest settlement, full of humanoids who’d seen fit to subject her to the most humiliating spectacle of her very long life. All went fine and well when they’d greeted the Doctor upon his emergence from the TARDIS. Friendly smiles all around. Yet as soon as she’d taken a step outside?

“‘Where’s its leash?’” she muttered again, voice saccharine-sweet-sarcastic, her lip curled as the words sat on her tongue, bitter as oversteeped green tea. “‘It’s so well behaved. _How long did it take you to train it?’_ ”

The worst part had been when she’d tried to speak with them and been treated as though she’d performed a marvellous trick.

“The local arseholes,” the Doctor corrected gamely, “Cannot comprehend human speech. I only assume their ability to process language is based on multi-stream connectivity between their auditory nerves and their frontal lobe equivalent. It would render them completely incapable of appreciating human sounds to be language."

"The TARDIS translation circuits should compensate," Rose pointed out.

"Well, perhaps a matter of deliberate, pervasive ignorance, then." The Doctor frowned, displeased by the notion. “They’ve placed John in a habitat in the zoological park. From what I understand, the facility is waiting for the arrival of a veterinarian to verify his health.”

“A vet,” Rose repeated, flat.

“Which gives us the opening we need to get in and remove him.” The Doctor, noting the cross set to Rose’s jaw, sighed. “And we needn’t come back here again.”

The statement snapped Rose out of what she could be adult enough to call a budding tantrum. “What about the other humans? You mentioned human colonies here. Are they all being kept in zoos, now?”

The Doctor’s brow furrowed. “I’ll have the TARDIS run scans. We’ll figure it out.” Hesitantly, he reached out and placed a hand on Rose’s arm. “I promise you, we won’t leave anyone to suffer.”

The wind slipped away from Rose’s sails and tried not to slouch. The itchy discomfort born from the locals’ condescension lingered, messing with her head. She’d dealt with numerous alien species—either while traveling with the Doctor or during her time with Torchwood—who’d decided humans weren’t worthy of their respect. Yet she’d never been as utterly dismissed before. They viewed her as an animal; an exotic yet domesticated _pet_.

“I’m not putting on a leash,” she informed the Doctor.

He blinked. “I’d never ask such a thing.”

Shame twisted up inside her, and Rose winced. “I know.” She slid herself under the Doctor’s arm. He pulled her close to his side a moment before taking a reluctant step away. She didn’t take it personally. The Doctor seemed to be in a constant argument with himself as to whether he enjoyed the contact. All Rose—and John—could do was ensure it stayed available if he wanted it.

Nodding, the Doctor gestured towards the door. “Let’s go and get him, then.”

They emerged from the TARDIS, Rose sticking close to the Doctor’s side. Whenever they were on a new planet, exploration became her first priority. He’d brought her to the stars with promises of adventure, after all, and even age couldn’t temper her desire to follow through on the promise. However, a handful of places, such as bastard-filled planets who saw humans as animals, weren’t the right spots to wander off. Not when they were dealing with the consequences of John having done so, anyway.

They’d set the TARDIS down less than a mile from the zoo’s entrance, tucked out of the way in a patch of greenery plunked in the middle of a significant metropolis, sky-high buildings stretching up all around the periphery. Once they passed from the overgrown vegetation and onto the paved walkway leading towards the zoo, they came within sight of the locals.

They immediately began regarding them— _her_ —with wide-eyed interest.

One of the children—at least, Rose guessed they were a child, considering they were significantly shorter than the average six-and-a-half-foot height of the others they’d encountered—nervously plodded up to them. “Can I pet it?”

The Doctor’s face contorted as though he’d catapulted deep in the throes of an aneurysm. Rose sighed—it wasn’t the kid’s fault, after all—stretched her hand forward to offer it. The kid’s eyes boggled at her, and they hesitantly reached out to poke the back of her knuckles.

“Wow,” the kid said, eyes lighting up. “I’ve been to see Mara a thousand times in the zoo! But I’ve never seen one this close before. I never knew they were _squishy_.”

The Doctor pondered this a moment. Rose easily imagined him crouching down to discuss things eye-to-eye with human children. The kid reached a scant half-foot shorter than Rose, though, and it wouldn’t have the same effect. “Rose is incredibly special to me,” he finally settled on. Touched, Rose allowed a small smile. “I’ve known her since she was young. And I’ve learned a lot from her.”

Other kids—even a number of adults, who all pretended not to be paying close attention as they halted what they were doing—began crowding around.

“Humans are wonderful problem-solvers. It’s important to remember simply because you can’t understand them, it doesn’t mean they aren’t sentient beings. I’ve never met another creature, from any species, with the depth of compassion and empathy Rose metes out to those around her each and every day.”

When the Doctor stepped back, Rose couldn’t help darting in to kiss his cheek.

The kid screeched in tickled disgust and took off back to their parents, yammering all about the Doctor allowing his pet to touch him with her mouth.

The Doctor’s glare turned frustrated and pained all at once, and despite herself Rose couldn’t help chuckling.

“Tony was the same at that age. One of us would try to explain something important to him, and he’d zero in on the worst possible takeaway. He got better, eventually.”

“Eventually.”

Before the Doctor could continue, one of the locals swept out from the zoo entrance, waving them down.

“You must be—” The voice came out light and feminine beneath the odd reverberating effect Rose now expected from the locals.

The Doctor produced his psychic paper. “I’m the Doctor.”

She examined them with appropriately awed noises trilling from the back of her throat. “These are impressive credentials. How long have you worked with humans?”

“Feels like forever,” the Doctor replied deadpan. Rose grinned down at her feet.

“My name is Loskoos. I’m the head keeper for our human habitat. Why don’t you follow me?” She eyed Rose nervously. “Your pet isn’t going to have a problem being around others, will she?”

“She’ll be on her best behaviour,” the Doctor said. Rose snorted, earning an even more nervous glance. The Doctor managed a comforting smile, and Loskoos finally led them into the zoo gates.

The habitats were all walled off with perfectly translucent material. They were small and crowded with an unrecognizable collection of creatures. They passed one paddock of lanikibos, all of them curled up together in a bundle of soft fur and resonant humming. The locals were pressed close to the observation deck, hoping to glean the soft psychic energy through the glass.

“Your habitats aren’t particularly large,” the Doctor commented mildly.

“We’ve maximized the room we have available,” Loskoos replied, her voice cheerfully hollow. “All of the species we maintain are given enrichment activities to make the most of their spaces.”

“I assume the human habitat is significantly larger,” the Doctor continued, “Considering they’re capable of independent space exploration.”

Loskoos laughed, until she realized the Doctor refused to laugh along with her. “The humans do have one of our larger spaces. We’ve only cared for Mara up until now, and she doesn’t know what to do with all the room. I always laugh when she’s paralyzed by choice.”

“And Mara is…?”

“Our other human. We’re hoping by introducing Device, the two of them will produce offspring we can send to our sister facilities across the world. Everyone should have a chance to experience how amazing humans are before they go completely extinct—”

“ _Offspring_ ,” Rose repeated, incensed. The Doctor placed a hand on hers and squeezed. She choked down the hard rage sticking in her craw. John. Focus on John.

“—he’s been reluctant to engage with her. It’s part of why we were looking for your insight. All the research indicates mature human males will usually present themselves to whatever fertile females are available. If he’s sick, it’s going to be detrimental to our program.”

The Doctor pondered her words as they continued forward. "What all do you understand about the humans in your care?”

Loskoos straightened proudly. "I consider myself our local expert. I’ve been in charge of the human exhibit since we first introduced it about eighty cycles ago. We’ve had… let me think… probably six or seven humans through our facility during the time. They show signs of rudimentary intelligence. Some theories even forward a basic capability for language.”

“Do they?”

“Their brains don’t have the necessary components to process language. While they’ve been observed communicating with each other, I doubt there’s anything refined about it. It’s all growls and squeaks to me,” she chuckled. When the Doctor refused to laugh along she coughed awkwardly and continued, “Wild humans are practically regarded as cryptids at this point—before yesterday, there hadn’t been a confirmed sighting for over twenty cycles. Finding one is a one in a billion opportunity to enrich our breeding pools!”

“Breeding pools,” Rose repeated.

“Breeding pools,” the Doctor echoed, again.

“Well, yes. Humans are nearly extinct. We sustain their existence through captive breeding programs. The fear is always that the pool will be too shallow for sustainability. Finding one in the wild really gives us hope, especially since they tend to travel in groups.” She regarded Rose shrewdly. “I don’t suppose—”

“No,” the Doctor interrupted.

“Oh, is she spayed? Shame. We attempted domestication ourselves, of course. They proved a challenging species to tame.” She paused and regarded Rose closely with the smile one might offer a puppy. “She’s sweet-tempered. You must have done tremendous work with her."

The Doctor’s lips pursed. “These are things you believe. I asked what you _understood_.”

Taken aback, Loskoos’ voice lost its professionally sunny timbre. “I’m not sure if I get your meaning.”

“Apparently.”

Loskoos came to stop in front of one of the habitats, not even the size of the TARDIS’ console room. An ancient climbing frame slumped sadly in the middle, and sitting in front of it…

“John,” Rose murmured, relieved to find him no worse for wear. She ached to touch the awful bruising encircling his neck. He stared resolutely at the ground, despite the massive number of locals crowding around the platform overlooking his ‘pen.’

Anyone who knew John’s incredibly expressive face would’ve been able to see the absolute fury barely contained in his unusually still body. His jaw tightened to bite back angry screams, and his brow sat heavy over his eyes. For all his pent-up rage, he refused to raise his head. Rose couldn’t find a way to get his attention through the glass, not without drawing the attention of the crowd. But she wanted to. If she could only put hands on him, to reassure him if nothing else.

Loskoos eyed her with interest. “Funny how they can identify each other from sight alone. We’re learning more and more about them every day.”

Her words drew the attention of the other locals, and a few of them turned her way. Jaws dropped—or the equivalent, anyway, which involved ear flapping—and the crowd began to close in on them.

“This is the Doctor. He’s a veterinarian specialized in human care, and is joining us today to check in on our new family member and make sure Device is happy and healthy in his new home,” Loskoos said without missing a beat.

“Device?” the Doctor repeated.

Loskoos gave off an aura of practiced amusement. “We couldn’t keep calling him ‘the male.’” The locals exchanged generous laughs.

Rose noted nervously they were pressing in closer. One of the tallest members of the crowd, towering over her by at least two feet, reached out to ruffle her hair. The Doctor pulled her back and away.

“Hands off the blond,” he snarled.

Rose nearly choked on her tongue as he maneuvered them out of the crowd and pinned Loskoos with a hard glare.

“Take me to your medical facilities now,” he told her.

“Certainly. Please follow me, Doctor.”

The crowd followed them for a few moments, until something in another display caught their collective attention. Displays seemed the right of it, too. Too small to be habitats, save by the standards set by the worst examples of zoos on earth. Her heart ached for the other creatures kept confined within them.

Loskoos led them through a security door and down a series of hallways behind the scenes, passing by numerous displays until they reached a sterile-smelling clinic tucked well into the recesses of the zoo. There were a few animals already caged within. None of them paid Loskoos, Rose or the Doctor any attention.

Loskoos grabbed up a hefty gun, and her squeaky-clean professionalism faltered when the Doctor scowled. “We’d never use deadly force on a critically endangered species unless absolutely necessary. This is purely for tranqs.”

“I’d prefer him to be conscious when I examine him,” the Doctor stated.

“Device has been hard to handle,” Loskoos argued. “While he acted fairly biddable when our conservation specialists caught him, he became violent after introducing him to Mara’s habitat. We worried he’d hurt her, but administration wouldn’t approve overtime to allow someone here to supervise them overnight. Fortunately, they seem to be getting on fairly well!”

“In my experience, few grown humans would ever actively seek to harm an adolescent.”

Loskoos had the audacity to appear surprised. “What you suggest flies in the face of the Elgen-Mar paper on human social behaviour.”

“I daren’t ask the context. Now,” the Doctor straightened to his full height, “Let me accompany you to collect him. I have a way with humans.”

Loskoos reluctantly acquiesced. She collected a catchpole from the same cupboard which produced the gun, and gestured for him to precede her. “Your human will be all right on her own a minute? Last time we brought Mara in here, she tried to let all the other animals out.” Loskoos peered at Rose closely. “We could settle her in one of the open cages.”

“Absolutely not. _Rose_ will be fine.”

Rose was absolutely not fine. Rose had begun to wonder if she was losing her mind a little. She settled herself by pacing the room, occasionally stopping to peer at the creatures contained within. If they were sentient, the TARDIS would translate for her, wouldn’t she? Then why couldn’t the locals understand her and John? Did every animal in existence feel the way Rose did now—she wanted to raze this entire place to the ground to win back even a modicum of power. She and John brought Tony to visit the London Zoo a thousand times back on Pete’s World, and she’d never dedicated a moment thinking about how the animals inside must feel, or if they were struggling to find a way to communicate with her.

She snapped out of her thoughts when John walked in, the Doctor close behind him.

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, turning around and blocking Loskoos’ entrance. “I’ll let you know my findings.”

Before she could protest, he slammed the door in her face.

Rose bounded over to John and slung her arms around his shoulders. He returned her fierce embrace with one of his own, shoving his nose into her hair and taking in a heaving breath.

“I’ve started appreciating all those times the Doctor yelled at me for wandering off,” Rose whispered into his collarbone. John held her tighter. “Are you all right?”

“Will be,” he managed.

“Actually, I’m afraid John has been stricken with an incurable disease, and has to be brought back to my lab for quarantine,” the Doctor said.

John grabbed the Doctor's arm, desperation in his eyes. "It has to be contagious."

The Doctor frowned. "Why?"

“ _Please._ ”

Rose wanted to cry at the sight of the girl they shuffled into the examination room a few minutes later. Matted hair pressed close against her head, and her skin glistened with the oily-grimy sheen of someone who rarely bathed and never used soap. She glanced around, suspicious, until she caught sight of John. Her face lit up and she ran to him, wrapping her arms around his middle.

"I promised, didn’t I?" John soothed, placing a hand against the back of her head.

"Is the treatment regimen a lengthy process?" Loskoos asked, frowning. "We can’t have the exhibit closed for too long. We're the only facility in this hemisphere capable of keeping humans alive for longer than a few years, and it’ll cut into our overhead if they’re gone for too long."

The Doctor frowned. "Where are the other humans in captivity? This may be a genetic disorder, and they could be carriers."

"I can provide a list of the facilities with humans currently in their care. Our sister facility on the Eastern continent used to have a breeding pair—Mara’s sire and his mate. Unfortunately the female died a few years ago without producing any additional offspring." Mara grabbed John's arm, shoving her face into his stomach and taking a shuddering breath. Rose leaned into them both, wrapping her arms around John’s waist and tucking Mara in between them. Loskoos frowned at the place they touched, side-eying the Doctor. "Don't let them pair-bond. We need him to impregnate Mara."

"You realize she's too young for what you're suggesting," the Doctor said. His voice dropped, banked fury barely hidden in the deceptively calm tone. Rose could hear the rage, even if their host appeared ignorant of it.

"Research indicates that as soon as they commence menstruation, they become capable of bearing young." She sighed, regarding the Doctor with disappointment. "Please don't tell me you're one of those pseudo-scientists who tries to anthropomorphize them. It sends scientific progress backwards."

The Doctor clenched his fist in preparation to throw a punch. And while Rose couldn't blame him, it would prevent them from getting John and the child out. Stepping away from John, she tucked herself into the Doctor's side, grabbing his hand and holding tight. Fine tremors shivered beneath his skin, and in a single moment, she could feel his desire for violence bubbling up through him.

"Doctor," she whispered.

He took a steadying breath. "Humans are extraordinary creatures," he said. He glanced at Rose. "Capable of incredible empathy and intelligence. But, of course, you need to be careful drawing too many parallels between them and species such as yours."

Loskoos nodded vehemently, the Doctor’s sneer flying right over her head.

The Doctor declined assistance in transporting them.

"I will have to insist on muzzling and restraining Device," she said. "He attacked a couple of our attendants when first introduced to Mara’s habitat."

"I'm confident he'll behave this time," the Doctor argued.

"I'm sorry, Doctor. While your credentials are impressive, I think I have more practical experience."

"I don't care," John whispered urgently, glaring at his feet. "Please get us out of here."

The Doctor scowled as Loskoos secured a muzzle around John's head, a cage-like contraption which depressed his tongue and clipped into place at the back of his head. Heavy chains ran down to lock around his wrists, making him incapable of moving them more than a few inches away from his face. Rose hated it. The moment they were gone, they could all throw it out the TARDIS doors and into the Vortex.

* * *

_Little friend... gone?_

_Taken. The Beings take little friend._

_Homeros need look for little friend._

* * *

The screaming started before the Doctor could properly secure the chains around John's wrists, and the other man threw them off with a flick of his arms, tearing the bloody contraption off his head before Loskoos could protest. Mara darted back to hide behind him, her rapid breaths hitting his back as she clung to his shirt.

"What is that?" the Doctor demanded.

"I... I need to check." Loskoos' hands tightened on her tranquilizer gun. Another scream grew closer before abruptly cutting off.

With it came a deafening roar barely muted by the room around them.

"Homeros," Mara whispered.

Another scream faded into a mangled gurgle. Loskoos lost her nerve. Her gun fell from useless fingers and she staggered backwards to squeeze between two of the cages lining the walls, fixing her attention on the door as she quivered in terror.

Seconds later, the door exploded inwards as a paw the size of a bike tire smashed through it. The Doctor's arm whipped out across John and Rose's chests, pushing them back as Homeros barreled into the door jam. His broad shoulders--easily five feet across--kept him from charging inside, and while the frame nearly buckled, but managed to hold strong.

"You locked a laematulis in here?!" the Doctor yelled. The beasts of Belegariand lived a predominantly mutualistic life; the Doctor was shocked to see one without the small symbiotic mammal attached to his side, greedily sucking up the ambient sounds of the world around him. Without it, the poor creature must've been tortured by even the slightest sounds filtering through his enormous ears. "How did you even catch one when they're nearly extinct?"

Homeros roared, outraged at the offense and swung a meaty limb towards them. The powerful sound cracked glass throughout the room.

Loskoos screamed. "I don't... we found him on a crashed ship fifty cycles ago. He's just a stupid animal!"

"He's in good company, then!"

John and Rose flinched backwards as Homeros struggled to fight his way in through the too-narrow door, tearing up chunks of floor with his enormous paws.

"Stop!" Mara shouted.

She cut out from behind John, and ran forward, wiggling out from Rose's grip and ignoring her attempts to haul her backwards. Homeros froze when she rounded the Doctor, and came to a stumbling stop only a few inches from his reach. Homeros' enraged howls simmered down to a low grumble, and he twitched backwards. Mara approached slowly, attention fixed wholly on the creature before her.

Homeros lowered his head--easily larger than Mara's entire torso--and waited patiently for her to place her hand atop his massive maw.

"It is soft," she whispered, stroking the fine fur atop his nose.

"Is she safe?" Rose asked.

The Doctor daren't look away. "If he's attached himself to her, she's the safest person on the planet."

Rose pushed up against him, as she had earlier, though whether for his comfort or his own the Doctor couldn't tell. John wrapped around her back and snaked his hand in the space between their bodies to grab for the Doctor’s hand, gripping tight while keeping the entirety of his attention on Mara, poised to jump if it looked as though she was in danger even for a single moment.

Homeros remained still. Calm, even, as Mara stroked his snout. She couldn't possibly serve the same function as the typical laematulia symbiote, but her presence eased him back from his rage all the same. Mara tucked herself under his chin, mindless of the saber-toothed maw, whispering words of comfort. Homeros lay down to rest atop her, earning a happy giggle from the squirming girl beneath him as he dropped his head onto her belly.

A blast of weapons discharge shattered the wonderful peace. It was not the sound of a tranquilizer dart being fired. Homeros dropped onto Mara, shielding her with his body, as three more consecutive shots ripped through his thick hide. Rose screamed as Homeros' body slumped over, posture dropping from protective to defeated.

Mara rose to her knees and shook his neck, desperately calling out in wordless shouts of denial until she dropped down to push her face into his fur.

John's hand slipped from the Doctor's, and the Doctor barely managed to turn in time to catch him as he started to leap towards Loskoos, rage filling his eyes. He twisted around to catch John's face between his hands and forced their gazes to lock. "John. _John!_ " John ripped his full attention back to the Doctor. "Mara needs you."

The fight fled John's body and he slumped, helplessly cast his gaze towards where Rose had run to Mara. Reluctantly he pulled away from the Doctor and turned to them, slumped shoulders and heavy feet carrying him across the short distance between them as though they were miles. Mara threw herself into his arms, but she did not weep.

"Grab his muzzle, Doctor!" Loskoos cried, shunting aside the deadly weapon she'd claimed she'd never use.

"I'll muzzle you in a minute," the Doctor shouted. She took the hint and shut herself up, though her gaze burned with resentment. A cabinet hung open beside her, a full complement of firearms crowding into the space. She'd dropped a number of bullets in her haste. The Doctor waited a moment for her to protest once more, and only when she remained silent did he join Rose and John.

"We need to leave," Rose told them, stroking Mara's back.

"He was soft," Mara told them. She choked back whatever other sentiments sat on her tongue, and allowed John to scoop her up into his arms.

"Let's go," the Doctor said.

The four of them stood, and carefully picked their way past Homeros' body. The Doctor wished he could've done more for the great beast, one of the last of his kind, but his priority needed to be the living. Mara buried her head in John's neck, and when she started to raise her eyes to catch a last glimpse of Homeros' body, Rose stepped in between them.

"Don't look, Mara," John murmured.

She squeezed her eyes shut until they were past the carnage in the hallway, and all the way through the back halls

They only made it a few feet down the hall before Loskoos caught up with them. She grabbed the Doctor's arm with surprising strength. "I don't think I should let you remove them from the facility. You're... you're no veterinarian."

"No, I'm the Doctor. And I've humoured you until now," the Doctor said, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Don't push me further."

Loskoos’ hand fell away from his arm, and she remained in place as the four of them strode out the door and out into the zoo beyond.

* * *

They made their way back to the TARDIS, Mara hovering close to John and looking back and forth between Rose and the Doctor in confusion.

All around them, other aliens paused in their steps to regard them, staring in shock and awe.

"What about the other humans on the planet, Doctor?" Rose asked, hesitant to break the silence though she couldn’t fight back the thought any longer.

"I'll scan for them," the Doctor murmured. "They won't be left behind."

John turned wet eyes on Mara, who regarded everything with wide-eyed fascination. Had she ever been outside of the 'habitat' they'd kept her in? Rose wanted to wrap her arms around the girl and hold her tight.

As soon as they came within sight of the TARDIS, John gently set Mara on the ground. Once his arms were free, he wrapped Rose up in a tight embrace, stuttered breaths punching painfully from his lungs. He turned and did the same to the Doctor moments later, and for all their Doctor claimed to not be much of a hugger these days, he barely hesitated to return the embrace.

"We'll always come for you," the Doctor promised.

John nodded and reluctantly drew backwards, barely managing to choke out, “I know.”

Mara stared in disbelief as they stepped inside the TARDIS. Rose crouched down beside her, and took her smaller hands between her own.

"I have a fun idea," Rose said. Mara blinked. "I bet you've never even heard of bubble bath, have you?"

“No,” Mara replied in a whisper. John nodded encouragingly until Mara tucked her hand into Rose’s.

Rose led Mara through the hallways to one of the bathrooms, relieved to find an enormous tub already filled to the brim with teeming mountains of bubbles. Mara’s eyes lit up only a second before she cast an unsure glance Rose's way.

"Go ahead," Rose told her. "I'll be right here. I promise."

With a wild grin, Mara leapt into the tub, clothes and all.

* * *

"We can't take her with us," John whispered brokenly, watching Rose gently lead Mara away. "She needs more help and attention than we can provide."

The Doctor nodded, his hand hovering over the small of John's back, close enough the heat of his palm pressed through John’s shirt.

"She lived on her own for years. _Years_ , Doctor. Years by herself getting gawked at by those bastards who couldn't appreciate her as anything other than an animal simply because they couldn't comprehend her intelligence. She's been made to do tricks, kept in a fishbowl little bigger than this room, and denied compassion and understanding from those who could love her. She's been robbed of human contact such a long time, it'll be hard for her to come back from it," John continued. He could feel words building up steam within him, an outpouring of sudden emotion bursting forth, outside of his control. "And yet she's good. She's so good. And she deserves a real home and family and we can't... we can't be that. We _can't_."

The Doctor grabbed John's hand as it flailed about, keeping it from smacking into one of the console’s sharp edges. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course," John replied immediately.

For a moment, the Doctor looked taken aback by John’s unshakable faith in him. Did the Doctor not get it? Hadn’t he realized?

The Doctor gave him back the stars.

Before he could ask, the Doctor pulled away. “We’ll go back for the other humans. There’s always the chance they’ll be unable to integrate into existing colonies, but we can look at special care facilities which can help them learn to care for themselves.

“I do happen to know someplace perfect for Mara, however.” The Doctor gestured to the console. “In the late Twenty-Fourth century, a virus targeted advanced cell decay in humans of a certain colony, and wiped out the adult population. The children were left with no one to care for them until one of the neighbouring systems discovered the situation. They arranged for the children to be transported here: Barriexas IX. We’re relatively close to a fairly sizable black hole. Time there moves significantly slower. A single day here lasts five years for the other planets in the system. The children were settled here to live safely until a cure could be found.

"Second star to the right," the Doctor finished, “And straight on ‘til morning.”

“Is a cure found?” John asked, hesitant to leave Mara somewhere she might never be able to leave. He wouldn’t exchange one cage for another.

“Oh yes. It only takes a week’s time after their arrival before they manage.” The Doctor offered a small smile. “She can be a child here, John. And when the children are retrieved, new homes are found for all of them.”

John sagged against the console. “And there’s no _Lord of the Flies_ business?”

“None,” the Doctor chuckled. “There are a number of robotic nannies there making sure of it.”

“Well. Suppose it’s all right, then.”

* * *

John disappeared to dress, and returned only a short while later to slump down onto the second step of the nearby stairs. He dropped his head into his hands.

The Doctor hesitated a moment before, finally, sitting down beside him. He’d been good at this, once. Delivering comfort. While the knack scattered into the ether when he’d regenerated, he still fancied his remaining skills acceptable. Could Clara claim responsibility for giving him the gift of it? Did she ever require comfort?

“When I realized what they expected me to do, I lost my temper,” John admitted, at length. “Reminded me of what you said, back when… well. Back before you left Rose and I in Pete’s World. How I was all blood and anger and revenge and how unworthy—”

“Stop,” the Doctor snapped. John rocked back as though he’d been struck. “I never believed you to be unworthy. I wouldn’t have conceived of leaving you with Rose if I did. You have worth, John. Beyond your connection to myself, Rose, or anyone else. You’re worthy because you’re you. Remarkable, uniquely you.

“I worried this universe could never be big enough for two of me,” the Doctor continued. “Especially not one more of me born of war. As I was, before meeting Rose. And while I shouldn’t have expected her to gladly shoulder the emotional burden of caring for another person, I’m glad she did. You’re a man I would’ve been proud to be, John Tyler.”

John’s mouth twisted up. “Johnathan Donna Tyler,” he said.

The Doctor blinked. “What?”

“My full name. Johnathan Donna Tyler.”

“It never is!”

“Right there on the paperwork, all legal and everything.” John mustered up a rueful smile. “I wanted to do her honour, you know?”

The Doctor’s pained expression vanished when Rose and Mara emerged from TARDIS’ inner depths. Mara smiled ear-to-ear, a stuffed duck tucked into her side. Between them, Rose and the TARDIS had conjured up decent clothing and scrubbed clean years of neglect—likely as much a process involving soap as it did words. Rose dependably understood exactly what to say when soothing away old aches and pains, and polishing up scars to make them shiny and something of which to be proud instead of ugly reminders of the past.

“Mara,” John said. Mara skipped over to him. “We’ve found a place for you with other children.”

“Children,” Mara repeated with intense concentration. “Things like us?”

“Yes, things like us,” John agreed.

“Humans,” the Doctor offered.

“Humans things like us,” Mara agreed gamely, offering a gap-toothed smile.

“You’ll have a chance to play with other children, and eventually you’ll find a family.” Mara cringed back from the word, and John scrambled to add. “A _real_ family. The same as we talked about.”

Mara carefully considered this, her attention remained fixed squarely on John. Finally, she nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck.

John’s face twisted up, and his eyes glazed over with unshed tears. The Doctor stood abruptly and moved to Rose’s side to give them a semblance of privacy. After they’d settled Mara, they could see to liberating the rest of the captive humans. The solution for the others would not be as effortlessly neat, despite how it would alleviate their suffering.

A few long minutes later, John and Mara joined them at the console.

“Does your young friend want the honours?” the Doctor asked, gesturing to the dematerialization lever.

John smiled and waved Mara over.

“ _Allons-y_ , Mara. Let’s go.”

“ _Allons-y_ ,” she repeated, a quiet smile overtaking her face.

The small planet enjoyed luscious plants and beautiful scenery. The remaining buildings still stood tall, and the neighbouring planets sent food and provisions enough to last the young residents more than three lifetimes. When they landed, a kaleidoscope of children beset the TARDIS, two dozen voices excitedly nattering all at once. Mara pressed back against John’s legs, eyes wide and clutching her stuffed duck as though it were a life raft and she lost at sea, until one of the older boys called for the others to step back.

They shared no common language, and once the TARDIS left they wouldn’t be able to communicate verbally. Regardless, when he offered her his hand he didn’t have to say anything at all.

Mara, blinking and bewildered, hesitated. John tensed, prepared to jump in and shoo the other children away until she became more comfortable. Before he could even twitch she spun about and threw her arms around his waist.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

It hit John the same as a gutpunch. Before he could respond, she’d tucked her hand into the older boy’s. “ _Allons-y_.”

They ran.

John watched until the flock of children vanished over the horizon, the beleaguered robot caretakers following after them. The Doctor and Rose waited, patiently, for hours until John accepted Mara wouldn’t return, and moved with heavy steps back into the TARDIS.

* * *

The Doctor paced about the console later. Much later, after they’d freed the system’s other humans and placed them in homes where they could be helped and rehabilitated. The TARDIS floated aimlessly through the Vortex, waiting for their next destination. He hesitated to take them anywhere before certain conversations took place.

“Doctor?” Rose asked, when he wouldn’t immediately turn to regard them.

“There’s a long overdue talk we need to have,” he told the console, before finally raising his eyes to them. They should’ve had the discussion even before they’d joined him on the TARDIS. He’d been putting it off for fear of the answers to questions he dreaded asking.

Rose blinked. "What is it?"

"For all you references to the passing of time, every one of my senses tell me it's been less than an hour since I left you behind."

John and Rose exchanged a nervous glance.

"How long has it been?" The Doctor asked. "And before you try to prevaricate, please remember while I’m not always wise, I'm not always stupid, either."

"Fifty-eight years," John said, almost before the Doctor finished speaking.

The Doctor enjoyed imagining himself to be a rather stoic man, this go ‘round. He also fancied they understood him well enough to recognize the myriad microexpressions tugging at his features. The shock followed by sorrow, all of which he tried to hastily hide before they could identify the tumultuous maelstrom causing his hearts to clench in his chest.

"Fifty-eight years," the Doctor repeated at length.

John nodded. "I ran tests, a few years in. Rose's genetic structure fundamentally altered when she looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and again by flinging herself between dimensions. She exists as an extra-dimensional being. Outside of time. She'll never age. Never die. Not while the Vortex exists."

The Doctor pondered this a moment. "And you?"

"Oh, I'm easy. I somehow ended up being more Time Lord than human. Might even regenerate, though we've never chanced testing it. Doubt I’ll live as long as Rose, but I’m in for a long haul either way."

Rose stepped forward. "We don't begrudge you this, Doctor. You gave us our forever. Only, forever ended up being closer to yours than we all expected."

"Is this why you came to find me? To be my immortal nannies and supervise my life unto the hereafter?"

"We came to find you because we love you!" Rose protested. The Doctor half-staggered under the weight of the words. "We're not going to nanny you, Doctor. We don't have the right. All we want is to share our forever with you, the way we always wanted."

" _We_." The Doctor cut a glance towards John, though he strove not to make it a cruel one." There was no _we_ when you offered me forever, Rose."

"There was no forever, either. The difference now is _we_ have the chance. If you want it."

The Doctor stared at the two of them. This incredible woman. This remarkable man.

"I do," he choked out.

Their faces lit up, comparable expressions of delight overtaking their features until there wasn't room for anything save joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left comments and kudos so far - they mean the world to me!


	6. the Interruption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for explicit m/f sex, vaginal sex, brief accidental voyeurism and no plot at all.
> 
> I've also bumped up the rating to reflect this chapter, as well as a few in the future.

Rose rolled her hips, chasing that perfect, building feeling of ecstasy welling up within her.

John, his back pressed to the headboard, slid his hands from her back down to her hips, the press of his palms and twitch of his fingers encouraging her to go faster. Delicious, perfect groans fell from his mouth, and Rose chased them down with her lips, tucking her hands into his hair and pulling his face to hers. His hips snapped up in reply, and Rose gasped, releasing him to grab the headboard and drive herself down onto him.

"Rose," John moaned. "Rose!"

"I’m here," Rose whimpered. John's hands slid up her back again and pressed into the space between her shoulder blades until her chest arched and he was able to get his mouth on one of her nipples. Rose whined, wordlessly, and John sped up the thrusting tilt of his pelvis, biting at her breast as she shouted in reply.

"Rose! John! There's something—"

Rose dragged in a hoarse groan as the Doctor swung into the room, freezing in the doorway as soon as he caught sight of them. Suddenly, it was as though she couldn't catch her breath, and John punctuated the moment with a hard thrust upwards.

"Something..." The Doctor repeated before pausing again. "Sorry."

He _lingered_ a long moment before darting back out and slamming the door behind him.

_Wouldn't it have been lovely if he'd stayed?_

Rose couldn't tell if it was John's thought or hers, or both of them blending together. From the way John groaned, she imagined it was at least partly the last. John stuck his thumb in his mouth, swiping his tongue across it, and pressed it against her clit, timing the drag of it against her with the thrust into her until Rose's entire body shuddered, the heat and electricity and pleasure welling in her pelvis exploding across her senses as she trembled and squeezed around him in throbbing waves.

_Even lovelier if he'd come over._

Rose choked out a thick groan, and John bit her neck.

 _Imagine him crossing the floor, folding himself up against your back, bucking into you. Whispering into your shoulder how much he loves you. As much as_ I _love you._

John waited out the clench around him until Rose began to come down from the high of it, and then quickened his thrusts, prolonging her climax as he sought out his.

_And what about you? The way he looks at your mouth sometimes, John._

_Like he wants to shut me up._

_Like he wants to shut you up_ with his own mouth.

She gasped when he arched up and froze at the intensity of his own orgasm, the roll of him beneath her threatening but not quite managing to drag her over the edge once more.

Rose bent over, fighting to catch her breath as John pressed his face into her breasts and licked mindlessly at the sweat beading her skin. Slowly, his trembling hands drifted up her body to wrap around her waist and pull her closer against him even as he slipped out of her.

 _Well_ , he thought, then continued aloud as their connection drifted back to the comforting hum at the edge of their thoughts, "What are we—"

"—going to do about this?" Rose finished.

John craned his neck and caught her mouth in a languid kiss.

They had time enough to figure it all out.


	7. Labyrinth of Mnemosyne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for a referenced threesome (probably not the one you're expecting). I don't believe any other content warnings apply to this chapter, but please let me know if anything occurs that I may have missed!

The TARDIS was being contrary. The Doctor felt eager for— _desperate_ for—any wee bit of diversion. An occupation to remove himself from the constant intrusion of thought of Rose's expression when he'd stumbled (deliberately intruded) upon her and John. 

No one mentioned it. Embarrassed probably, though they’d all avoided awkward, hastily-averted gazes and horrified blushing. Rose and John sought him out in the console room less than an hour later, Rose with two cups in hand, one tea made to her specification, the other a particularly good latte with two sugars, which she'd pressed into his hands with a smile. John set down a plate of ginger biscuits. A worryingly normal occasion, no apparent attempt at mollifying or nannying him. One could say—if one were _not_ prone to avoiding the word—domestic. Rose leaned up against him to get a better view of the console, even as John draped himself upon the stairs, watching them both and making occasional observations about the Doctor's navigational acumen (unimproved, still serviceable) as he brought them through to Rose's favourite chippie on opening day 1988. 

(They'd ended up in 1998, at which point Rose caught glimpse of her mother and her eleven-year-old self stopping by. They'd all beaded a hasty retreat to her second-favourite chippie, which still sold reasonably good chips but only stocked Heinz instead of Sarsons. She did, at length, forgive him, though he was given to understand it a near thing). 

Fine. If they wanted to pretend nothing happened he could play ignorant with the best of them. In fact, some people might suggest ignorance to be one of his fortes. They'd certainly said as much to his face. Or thought it, at least, generally while entertaining the desire to slap him. He fiddled with his ring a moment before clenching his hands into hard fists. 

Anything, he decided, to get his mind off ( _the way gasps tripped from Rose’s lips, the broken-off groan pulled from John’s mouth, the terrible desire to stay_ ) things. 

The TARDIS finally obliged. 

The alert lit up the console brighter than a solar flare; a call for help specifically aimed at him. He studied the readouts, unsurprised when Rose and John stumbled in only a moment later. 

"What is it?" John demanded, sidling up to the Doctor to peer at the console. The Doctor remained still as a statue, determined not to give ground. 

Even when Rose crept up on his other side. 

"Not sure. When anyone calls for me specifically, it's rarely good." 

The suspiciously specific coordinates called the TARDIS to dematerialize on a planet he'd never visited, in a galaxy he'd only heard of in passing. Rose murmured about going to get her sonic, and disappeared down the hall. 

"Let's see what's going on, shall we?" 

The space outside the TARDIS opened into a space carved in a naturally-hewn cave, the walls dotted with humongous calcite deposits. Intricate overlapping patterns engraved the ground-down floor. The Doctor pulled out his sonic for a quick scan. 

"There’s a psychic field rooted in the patterns on the ground," the Doctor said, examining the carved floor. 

Twisting, interlocked spirals all filled with solid, pale crystal, near Gallifreyan in appearance, though only in the way Cyrillic script superficially resembled Latin. The fascinating interwoven designs covered the floor all around the TARDIS, the circles varying in size at multiple points of intersection. The nonsensical design must have congregated underneath their landing point in the centre of the room. 

"What's it do?" Rose called from within the TARDIS.

"No idea," the Doctor admitted. The sonic indicated the lines to be filled with melted eropathia; highly psychically conductive crystal. Fascinating anyone would think of using it for decoration; had it been purposeful, or did the creators accidentally stumble upon the way to psychically charge such a wide area.

He slowly placed a foot outside the TARDIS, bracing for… something. Anything. Yet even as his foot landed in the middle of four interlocking lines, nothing happened. He sighed, not quite sure if disappointment won out over relief. 

"Think it's dangerous?" John asked, popping his head out and studying the floor with intense curiosity.

The Doctor shrugged. "It’s not having any impact on me."

John stepped out of the TARDIS, and _why did Jackie always have to yell?_

Nothing new there, really. Jackie always felt the need to yell about one thing or the other. 'Stop cannibalizing my appliances for your designs!' 'What is all this glowing orange slime in my bathtub?!' 'A neutrino inverter is not an appropriate science fair experiment!'

(The thing with the inverter felt particularly frustrating: it only operated in the terrajoule range, no reason to kick up a fuss). 

Truly far too much yelling. And this time the Doctor fancied he didn't even deserve it.

"You take the stupidest risks!" She’d begun repeating herself; a telltale sign of winding down. "There weren't nothing in that lab you needed to go back for, and when Rose gets here she'll tell you the exact same thing."

"I was perfectly safe—"

"You're in hospital!"

And off she went. Again. 

While conducting a combustion analysis of particular gaseous hydrocarbons, the Doctor’s glass broke in the containment vent. The room flooded with acidic gas, and while the Doctor urged the rest of his staff out the door, he couldn't leave without nipping into his office first. While all his research remained secured in airtight storage, there were things left on his desk which would've been destroyed if abandoned. He made a calculated risk, and the Doctor fancied himself excellent at maths. 

Unfortunately, the venting system buckled with the stress of sucking out the gas, and while he believed he'd managed to avoid the worst of the damage to his lungs, he would own up to an uncomfortable itch in his throat as a result. And maybe reduced peak expiratory flow rate resulting in mild—quite mild—hypoxemia. Barely symptomatic. And it stymied him why they'd called Jackie over it.

He said as much and Jackie glowered at him. "Because I'm family, ya plum!"

"No one consulted me!" the Doctor protested.

"As soon as you are out of this hospital, I am going to give you such a walloping you'll end up right back in it!"

The Doctor turned beseeching eyes on Pete who’d only recently ended a serious-sounding phone call while resolutely ignoring them both. "Could you—"

"John." The Doctor hushed. Pete very rarely used The Tone on any of them, typically reserving it for addressing Torchwood agents during apocalyptic threats or performance reviews. When he did, they shut their gobs and listened. "Going back into your office was dangerous. Not to mention incredibly stupid. Jackie is yelling because she loves you and she worries."

"Well," Jackie huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and pointedly denying nothing. The cockles of the Doctor’s heart were sufficiently warmed. Why were they called cockles anyway? Weren’t cockles a sort of mollusk?

"And you'd best prepare yourself for Rose to yell at you, too. Because she's left the operation in Tambacounda to Jake and is on her way home."

The Doctor winced, seafood-inspired anatomical terms forgotten. "You called her?"

"Yes. And we would have called you if your positions were reversed. Unless you'd prefer to live in ignorance if it were Rose lying in a hospital bed."

The Doctor had no response.

With a blink the Doctor returned to himself, crouched down near the TARDIS, John standing closeby. His eyes were glazed over, lost in thought. Or something more?

"John?" the Doctor said.

While John remained statue-still, the Doctor could see his lips twitching in silent repetition of unspoken words. The Doctor grabbed his arm, and found himself suddenly besieged by recollections of Amy and Rory’s reunion after their long separation and everything being mouths. He could’ve been living through the moment again for how vividly he suddenly recalled it.

John dragged in a deep breath and shook his head, eyes wide as he swung half-mad eyes towards the Doctor.

"Was that...?"

"Did you...?"

"What is it?" Rose asked. She began to step out of the TARDIS, frowning in confusion when they both screamed 'no!' even as she placed her foot on the floor and _it was Tony's first birthday._

People flooded the house; guests Jackie and Pete claimed the Doctor knew, though most of the introductions were made in passing at parties such as these when the Doctor walked in one door, crossed the floor, and walked out another door on her way to Torchwood. They'd enjoyed a small family dinner only a few nights earlier, in which the Doctor smilingly witnessed Tony's uninhibited joy over trying cake for the first time, and mashing bright violet buttercream into his hair. _That_ was her idea of a party, not this crowd of strangers and sycophants attempting to curry favour with her parents.

Tony looked increasingly grumpy with the number of people fawning over him, petting his hair, exclaiming over how much he resembled Pete. He’d been working up to one hell of a tantrum the past five minutes, and the innumerable guests had Jackie trapped on the other side of the enormous ballroom. She’d tried and failed to excuse herself without being rude about fifty times. She shot beseeching eyes at the Doctor, who nodded and swept in to pick Tony up and ferry him out the back way.

Tony pointed downwards and Rose lowered him to the smooth paving stones lining their veranda. He grinned at her hopefully and the Doctor took his hands and allowed him to walk her the length of the patio.

"Bit boring innit?" the Doctor asked. Tony screeched in reply. She sat down and pulled Tony into her lap. "Let me tell you a story about a mad man in a box."

Bussing the top of Tony’s head, the Doctor settled in to tell the story of her time at Henrik's, and her first meeting with the amazing man who'd saved her soul.

"Not an appropriate story for a child of one," the Doctor commented when he snapped back to himself.

Rose blinked, wide-eyed. "What?"

"You told Tony about the day we met. At his first birthday."

"I... told him the story a hundred times." Rose's brow furrowed. "How...?"

"Did you see anything just now?" John demanded. "Because I did. I saw River Song. I _married_ River Song." He frowned, face scrunching up. "I'd always wondered about her."

Rose, the Doctor noted, appeared curiously nonplussed by the fact. He returned his attention to the patterns on the floor. "Whatever this place is, it's delving into our memories and finding ones to share." He swung towards John. "What did you go back for in your office? The day of the acid gas incident?"

John turned a fatuous grin towards Rose. "An engagement ring."

The Doctor glanced at Rose’s hand; still unadorned as it had been every day since their reunion. 

"Never wore it on ops, did I? It’s back behind in Pete’s World,” Rose murmured, obviously grieved from the loss. She coughed and conspicuously changed the subject. "I did see something.” After a long pause, she admitted, “I saw Martha, and what she said to you when she realized she needed to go.”

Oh, Martha. He should have appreciated her more. Acknowledged her feelings and addressed them outright, instead of ignoring them and hoping she’d take the hint. Aching with the loss of Rose and failing to appreciate the magnificence of the woman before him. When she’d walked out the TARDIS’ doors without the scarcest glance back at him, he’d realized what an utter fool he’d been. 

The Doctor followed the looping sigils with his gaze until they led his attention to the lone exit in the room. A single hallway leading out, the crystalline designs converging in one point before opening into a starburst of webbed lines.

While no other incidents occurred as they crossed the floor, the Doctor could feel Rose and John in the back of his mind. His hearts echoed the beating of theirs, a quadruple thrum threatening to overwhelm as they made their way into the hallway. Despite the wide corridors providing enough room for the three of them to walk abreast, the Doctor automatically stepped out front, sonic at the ready and prepared for anything.

Anything save for the wall slamming shut behind them. Rose rounded on it and slapped the wall to no effect; it remained resolutely shut. 

“We’re trapped,” she said, panic edging her voice. It calmed when she looked his way. His Rose always did have more faith in him than he deserved. 

"One way out," the Doctor said, turning his gaze to the long hallway ahead of them. "Let's go."

They moved forward, close together. The carvings continued their looping script on each surface save the still-natural ceiling. Along with the circles, which crept up from the ground and lined the walls, there were engravings of flowers, complicated knots and smallish, pretty birds. Fine filigree designs painstakingly drawn in amongst the images. 

Rose paused to examine one, her fingers brushing across the elegant designs and _eight days had passed since they’d been abandoned at Bad Wolf Bay._

Rose unlocked the door of her flat and ushered the Doctor inside. She’d kept her space largely utilitarian; not much beyond simple furnishing and practical appliances, with no signs of any effort to create a home, save an elementary drawing taped to her refrigerator of a blonde stick figure holding the hand of a significantly shorter brunette. Nothing else remarked the place as anything other than an occasional space for sleeping.

"Have you lived here this whole time?" the Doctor asked, single heart aching. The dimension cannon must have taken her years to perfect, and she must’ve been so painfully lonely the entire time.

Rose shrugged. "I spend a lot of time at Torchwood. I'll make up the spare bedroom, yeah?" A generous offer—he would've been satisfied with the couch. An entire bedroom? He wasn't sure what he'd do with himself.

The few days passed in a blurry holding pattern; Rose the solicitous hostess, unsure of whether to treat her new houseguest as a long-lost love or a stranger, and alternating between warmth and diffidence as she tried to determine which. Yet she remained a constant presence, waiting in the wings until they decided where they were going.

And then, one night, it happened. After two weeks of trying to figure out his existence—be it human or Time Lord, man or myth—his head began to pound with unanswered questions. Who was he? What was he? Was he human? Time Lord? Both? Neither? He caught himself forgetting the simplest things; he went to pour himself a glass of water, and let the faucet run for a full minute before realizing he'd neglected to grab a glass and allowed the water to simply pour over his hand. Zips were challenging. Buttons impossible. He stood under cold water in the shower until hypothermic because he'd forgotten to turn both taps.

Rose caught him about to drink water straight from the kettle, and saved him from drowning in boiling water in the nick of time.

"What's going on?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "I... I don't..." He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "I can't. There's too much."

She reached for him. Grabbing his hands and holding them in her own. He only realized he’d started shaking when she tucked his hands into hers. Her palms were calloused and roughened from use, and still a perfect fit.

"I'm here," she told him. "What do you need?"

Before he could answer, she folded him into her arms. In that moment he realized regardless of everything else, he loved Rose Tyler. Inextricably. Incandescently. Irrefutably. Irrevocably.

"I don't know how a human brain works when I'm the human," the Doctor whispered. "I've touched the minds of others. Shared memories and feelings. Stolen moments to never be recovered. But it's worlds different when it's me. Please... help me?"

"Anything."

"I can’t guarantee this will work, Rose. There's a chance I'll simply burn out. Whatever is human in me might not be able to reconcile with what's Time Lord."

Stricken, Rose barely managed to cough out in her grief, "Are you saying I'm going to lose you?" The _again_ went unsaid, and echoed loudly in the air between them all the same.

"I'm saying if I don't do this, you definitely will. There's never been a human-Time Lord metacrisis before now. There can't be. And I can’t keep going the way I am." He hesitantly reached up and cupped her cheeks. "If we do this, I'll have more of a chance than I would."

He could feel Rose coming to a decision. She nodded and covered his hands with hers. "What do we do?"

"Donna provided the blueprint, Rose. I need your help to build on it."

He couldn’t tell if it would work. Couldn’t be sure, not in a million years. He doubted could employ enough telepathic ability to invite Rose into his mind. Yet if he couldn't, his brain would going to burn up in a grey matter supernova, and the only thing remaining would be an empty somewhat-human shell, and he _refused_ to do that to Rose. His hands settled flat against her temples and his eyes fluttered shut, focusing on Rose Tyler and her wonderful, brilliant, _human_ brain.

_Is this all right?_

_Oh, yes._

There weren't words to describe having Rose Tyler back in his mind. Comparable to inviting her over to help him pack up a cluttered house in preparation for a move, full of bits and bobs and bric-a-brac and wonders the Doctor collected over centuries of living all left stuck in a mind no longer capable of containing it all. He used her brain as a template, filling the cavities of his mindspace with things he needed and complemented by spaces left free to continue learning. He kept as much of Donna as he could, boxes of treasures tucked away for safekeeping. Other things Rose helped him categorize and toss out as non-essential—anything refusing to follow the Madelung rule on the periodic table, for example, or how to bake a one-bowl Bose-Einstein condensate. The Doctor, decided the Doctor, would never have been able to do this. He'd've tossed everything behind a closet door and bolted it, hoping the wood wouldn't give under the strain of keeping it all locked away. They boxed up the useful things and organized them in useful spaces. How to build a sonic screwdriver. How to pilot the TARDIS, because he never wanted to forget her singing beneath his fingertips. She helped him stock his mental cupboards with essentials and non-perishables. Basics he could build on and add to, filling the shelves of a flat-pack bookcase. Donna gave him all he needed to be human. Rose helped him realize what “human” meant.

When he finally drew back from Rose's mind, twelve hours later, hunger gnawed at his stomach, and he laughed when Rose’s growled too.

"All right?" Rose asked, brushing her knuckles across his cheek. 

"More than," the Doctor assured her. He ached to press his thumbs to the dark circles beneath her eyes, but settled for grabbing her hand and kissing the middle of her palm. "I'm not him anymore, Rose. We've thrown out so much of him..."

"Then be who you are," Rose told him, before kissing him for the first time since they'd left Bad Wolf Bay.

Traces of Rose remained in his mind, a side-effect he could’ve predicted if he'd given it more than a moment's consideration. A burgeoning psychic connection which let him pick up on her surface thoughts and appreciate the beautiful landscape of her magnificent mind. He failed to notice at first, until he made them coddled eggs and toast for dinner.

"I haven't had this in years," she moaned appreciatively over them.

"I added chives," the Doctor told her.

"My favourite," Rose hummed, dipping her toast into the perfectly runny yolk.

"You said you wanted them," the Doctor smiled, pleased to have given her this small thing, despite paling in comparison to everything she’d done for him.

Rose blinked. "I never did."

"While you were in the shower, I heard you say..." He paused.

"Doctor?"

"I'm not," he said, by route. She nodded and waited. "I think..." He paused called to mind a fraction of the unstructured filth he’d wanted since he’d first seen her with his new, human eyes. When she blushed bright red, he gasped. "Oh." They were still connected, somehow. "Rose, I..."

"If you say you're sorry, I will slap you hard enough you'll run to mum crying," Rose informed him.

"I'm not sorry. I should be. I can't be. Because your mind, Rose, it's brilliant. And if I can occupy even a corner of it, I’d be the luckiest man who ever lived."

Rose reached across the table and took his hand.

The next day, for the first time, he left their flat with confidence and presented himself to Jackie and Pete as John Smith. The name never felt as real as it did when he used it in the past, and when Rose reached down and took his hand, the Doctor knew it to be _right_. Not because of any particular attachment to the jumbled bunch of syllables, but because he’d chosen it for himself.

"It never occurred to me your mind wouldn't be able to handle it. I believed the Time Lord part of you would compensate,” the Doctor told Rose and John as the memory slipped away from him and left him back in the present. 

John completely ignored the statement. "Did you really duel Robin Hood with a spoon?" He wagged his finger. "We're putting a pin in this, because once we're done here, I want to hear everything."

Nervously, the Doctor’s attention darted to Rose. What did she see? Presumably, when one of them shared a memory, all of them experienced something. Rose, pale, fixed her attention on the wall's elegant designs. "Rose—"

"We should go," Rose said. "Keep moving. Find our way out."

The Doctor nodded, and they continued onward. The passages branched out in multiple directions, abrupt turns and intersections seemingly without end. No new memories accosted them as they made their way forward, the Doctor in the lead with John and Rose close at his heels. There must be an obvious method and purpose behind this place; they only needed to determine what. Why these memories specifically? What could be the reason behind it?

And who called them here?

They came to another intersection. Unlike previous ones, the hallways stretched out further than he could see.

"Are we supposed to split up?" Rose asked.

"On no account are we splitting up," the Doctor responded.

"I'll take the left," John said.

The Doctor glowered at the two of them to little effect. Cla— past companions frequently did the same thing. He would’ve hoped, having shared even a modicum of each other's memories, they'd have more appreciation for his hesitance in letting them wander about on their own. 

Then again, how could he deny them their autonomy, when the core essence of what it meant to be human defined them?

"Walk three hundred paces and then turn 'round. See what we find."

Rose and John grinned at him. John grabbed Rose's hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles and then took off down the left. Rose turned to the right and paused. She turned back to lay a gentle kiss on the Doctor's cheek.

"I'm so sorry about Donna."

The Doctor winced, his eyes shutting of their own accord as he tried to forget the betrayal in Donna's eyes as he'd placed his hands on her temples. "I might as well have ripped out my hearts," the Doctor said. “But I couldn’t find any other way to protect her."

Hadn’t the very idea been reflected back at him in John’s memories? He could’ve been a human examining at the brain of a fruit fly for all it mattered; without taking painstaking hours Donna couldn’t have spared, he’d been unable to carefully pick things out. Saving her life demanded quick, decisive action. And it meant storing up her every memory of him and locking them tight behind a barrier she’d never be able to prise open on her own.

Rose took his hand and squeezed his fingers before darting down the opposite hallway. He waited until she'd made it a good hundred feet before proceeding down his own corridor. No obvious difference existed between the looping patterns lining his hallway and the ones Rose and John pursued. Perhaps a few more flowers on the walls than on theirs. 

The Doctor kept his strides long and purposeful, and trailed his hands along the walls. What triggered the process? Had John and Rose stepping off the TARDIS started it, or had it become inevitable the moment they’d landed? Obviously the three of them entering the maze drove it forward, yet what caused it to happen in the first place? 

At two hundred paces, he hit a dead end and turned to make his way back to the intersection. Rose returned in advance of either of them, and shrugged when she saw him. John arrived only a minute later, and _the Doctor couldn’t help staring at a very familiar face across a poorly-lit pub._

"He's wearing his vortex manipulator," John whispered in the Doctor's ear, the heat of his breath eliciting a shiver from the Doctor’s tailbone all the way up to her ears. 

"He's still a time agent," the Doctor breathed.

Jack Harkness—or, at least, a strikingly similar double—stood at the bar, madly flirting. Or simply breathing, as such things went when one happened to be Jack Harkness. While nothing about his choice of clothing screamed anachronism, the Doctor couldn’t help notice the slightly off quality about the style, similar to how an article of clothing on a runway could inspire a lazy copy for sale online a few days later. His attempts to fit in could only mean one thing: he was _working_.

Working the bar, anyway.

“His flirting used to bother the Doctor way more,” John commented mildly, his voice still a low thrum in her ear. They watched Jack throw his head back as he laughed to deliberately show off the long lines of his neck. It would be unfair to claim Jack treated flirting with any sort of deliberate strategy; mostly because it disregarded the tireless effort he’d poured into making flirting effortless as possible. "Can't recall why."

“I don’t remember the Doctor ever being bothered by it,” the Doctor commented.

“Well, back when you traveled with the two of them, the Doctor thought him irritatingly charming at worst. After the game station it became another matter entirely.”

The Doctor nodded. John’d told her about the Doctor’s casual cruelties towards Jack after she’d unexpectedly made her friend a fixed point in time. Maybe things would’ve been easier if she’d still been there. Maybe not. Either way, it must have been hard for him to conciliate Jack’s immortality while she’d been lost to them both.

"With Donna buzzing about in your head, I'm not surprised. She thought him well fit." The Doctor paused. “He’s coming over."

John coughed into his drink. “What?”

“Well hello,” Not-Jack said, slipping into the other side of their booth; the horseshoe-shaped table left a generous stretch of bench open. “I couldn’t help notice the two of you eyeing me up, and decided I’d come introduce myself. Jerrick Twiste.” He offered his hand and wrinkled his nose.

The Doctor took it immediately, grinning ear-to-ear. “Rose Tyler.” Jerrick’s warm palm ghosted over hers only a moment before he bent over it to press his lips to knuckles. 

“John Tyler,” John said, his hand lingering in Jerrick’s slightly longer than he’d probably intended, and Jerrick treated him to the same brushing kiss. “Jerrick Twiste,” he repeated after a moment, drawing out the syllables. “Your costume department needs to improve their research skills.”

The Doctor rolled her eyes. “Rude.” 

“That particular synthetic fabric hasn’t even been invented yet!” 

Jerrick’s expression shuttered. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“We’re both pretty sure you do,” John continued. The Doctor stuck her elbow in John's side and John ‘oofed.’ “Agents Tyler and Tyler, Torchwood. We’ve run into Time Agents before.” Both true statements. Not strictly connected, true, but what Jerrick didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“Ah.” Jerrick leaned back. “We have guidelines on how to engage local law enforcement. Mostly it revolves around the word ‘don’t.’”

“Well, we’d never dream of giving you a hard time when you so nicely dealt with the matter before we even got here,” the Doctor said. She smiled mischievously. “We had a long drive, though. You could at least buy a round to make it up to us.”

Jerrick grinned, enchanted. “I save you the trouble of retrieving a fugitive from the Maelstrom Detention Centre, and _I’m_ the one buying the drinks? You should be treating me. Especially considering how gooey acaaladaptrians get when they’re nervous.”

“Well, what are you drinking, then?” John asked, leaning forward and doing his thing. The unbearably endearing thing where he made the world adore him. It both drove the Doctor insane and made her feel unaccountably spectacular because at the end of the day he chose to be with _her_.

“Practically everything you have here on Earth is better than the over-processed swill we drink back home. Surprise me. I like it strong and sweet.” As he said the words, his voice absolutely dripping sex, his eyes roamed over John’s body, and he punctuated the words by running his tongue across his teeth. 

Once John headed towards the bar, after they’d both enjoyed the view of him walking away, Jerrick turned the same heated gaze on her.

“Tell me about yourself, gorgeous.”

Well.

Well, well, well.

_Well._

The Doctor found himself filled with the implacable knowledge Rose and John enjoyed certain, warm relations with a Jack Harkness double in a Scottish town so small the cows outnumbered the humans.

Whatever John and Rose glimpsed in his memories, neither of them appeared particularly scandalized, and the Doctor tamped down on the annoying urge to clutch at his pearls. He’d never been completely oblivious to Jack’s charms. And he existed in a state of keen awareness of Rose and John’s, for all he constantly denied it to himself. Put them all together with a generous helping of unresolved sexual tension and.

Well.

“All right, Doctor?” Rose asked.

“Dare we ask what you’ve been treated to this time?” John chuckled, even as he pulled at the low neckline of his jumper, a particularly telling nervous habit. Combined with his semi-habitual ear-tugging, the Doctor could read him quite well indeed.

“Let’s continue, shall we?” the Doctor said brusquely.

“That bad?” Rose asked, even as John began tugging on his left ear.

“Not at all,” the Doctor replied with a smile. Maybe they would want to seek out Jack? Something to ponder. Last time he’d seen Jack, he’d tried to shove him towards Alonso—a last, rather weak attempt at assuaging a guilty conscience, appreciating the varied disservices he’d done his former companion. He’d never allowed himself to wonder what happened to Jack afterwards, confident they would eventually cross paths again. The universe existed in a constant state of expansion, but immortality tended to make even the vastest spaces infinitely smaller.

Speaking of vast spaces, the hallway John investigated stretched on for an improbable amount of time. Whoever designed this maze appeared as well-versed in dimensional transcendence as the Time Lords themselves.

They walked without interruption nor any sign of other hallways, for a quarter hour before the Doctor finally ventured, “Are you two both seeing only my memories, or are you sharing one another’s as well?” the Doctor asked a few moments later.

“Yours, exclusively,” John said.

“Makes sense doesn’t it?” Rose murmured, absently.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, the two of us already have a link. We’ve seen each other’s memories, or lived through them. Same with you and John. You two aren’t going to relive memories you’ve both already experienced, right?”

“Why wouldn’t we? Can this place tell what we have or haven’t gone through together?”

“No, but we know.”

“Selective subconscious psychoawareness,” John said. “Genius, if the point of all this is explicitly for us to share memories with each other. Just… _why_?”

“Perhaps it's an intelligence-gathering mechanism,” the Doctor suggested.

“Maybe we should be less worried about the memories we’re sharing, and more worried about the ones we aren’t,” Rose murmured.

“Makes me wonder if we can choose the memories we share,” the Doctor continued thoughtfully. He considered his companions with narrowed eyes. “Here, I want to try something.”

He held out his hands, and Rose and John took them without question. He needn’t close his eyes, of course, it only felt apropos. He fixed his mind on a single concept: Clara. Perhaps, if he focused on her name and tried to project what he’d pieced together, Rose and John might pry the memories from wherever they’d been buried in his mind and save him from the torment of having forgotten her and _he and Rose were tucked up in bed together for the first time_.

A few short days had passed since sorting through the detritus of his memories, and while their connection faded into a warm background sensation, its warm presence still lingered between them. Rose lay close, their only point of connection clasped hands. 

“Tell me a story,” she whispered, her eyes already drifting shut. She’d introduced him to Torchwood that morning, and toured their impressive facilities. He’d met a dozen people and gotten a peek at the labs in which he hoped he’d be able to work. All of it paled in comparison to seeing Rose’s aggressive competence as she dealt with the people around her. 

“Did I ever tell you about Pompeii?” the Doctor whispered. 

“No,” Rose replied. 

“It was one of the Doctor’s first trips with… Donna.” He stumbled over her name, because the loss of her felt unbearably near. The story nonetheless spilled out of him, the first of a thousand tales he’d tell her about moments she’d missed. The stories allowed him to separate himself from the Doctor. He spoke while keeping as much distance as he could, until they stopped feeling like memories and began to exist as stories. It helped him separate himself from the Doctor, until he could confidently present himself independent of his unusual origins. He talked himself hoarse, Rose drifting to sleep long before he finished and leaving him to whisper words to her sleeping ears until he faded away himself. 

The Doctor blinked as John withdrew his hand from where his fingers twined with the Doctor’s and stuck both hands in his pockets. 

“What did you see?” he demanded, hoping to avoid coming across as desperate and resigning himself to the inevitability. 

Rose wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “Nothing.” 

“A hole,” John whispered. 

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut. He ached to resurrect his memories of Clara. Instead, he once again found himself muscling through the defeated yearning for knowledge of her. For all he longed to understand what she’d been to him, there would be no answers here. She’d remain a gaping absence in his mind; the wound raw and unhealed and ever-present. 

He forced it down, as he did each time he’d tried and failed to dredge up the smallest sliver of memory. 

“Doctor,” Rose whispered. He regarded her with wretched hope for distraction. “Can I?” She offered him her hands. John hovered close, understanding lighting up in his eyes even as the Doctor remained confused. Still, he trusted Rose more than he trusted himself most days, and he placed her hands in hers, and _he sat across a table, staring into wide chocolate brown eyes._

“He’s my best friend. He’s a stupid, stubborn, ridiculous old man and I love him, and I can’t… I can’t stand to think of him on his own. If I could’ve stayed with him forever, I would’ve—” The Doctor twitched in her seat, her hand flexing in John’s “—but it never happened the way I wanted. And now I need to ensure he’ll have someone who will help him be the man I know he is, instead of the one he’s afraid he’ll become.”

The Doctor snatched his hands away, unable to stand it a moment longer.

Clara. God. It had been Clara all along.

“The whole time,” he forced through a clenched jaw. “She… It was her.” He dragged his hand across his mouth. He should’ve known her. He’d been _positive_ he’d recognize her if only he could see her once more. And he’d been sat there like an idiot for hours, talking to pass time as he muscled his way through mystifyingly intense grief he couldn’t qualify.

The Doctor tried to slot the recovered knowledge of Clara into place. While he could easily imagine the petite brunette who smelled of pink peppercorns and orange blossom fitting into his life, the memories remained locked away. He could now academically describe the woman who’d apparently meant a world to him, and in some ways it made her absence all the worse. 

And yet, he never believed he’d be able to put a face to a name again. He tugged Rose close and kissed her forehead. “Thank you.” 

She tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “She loves you so much,” Rose told him. 

“Enough to risk travelling between universes to find us,” John continued. 

_The one he’s afraid he’ll become_. Oh yes. The ever-present and terribly real fear. The words made the Doctor shudder, and he pushed them down to consider later. “Shall we?” 

They allowed him the chance to refocus, though Rose squeezed his hands before allowing him to pull away. He glanced ahead, and frowned when he noticed a new corner only a few feet away.

“Did anyone see that turn before?” Rose asked.

The Doctor shook his head. “Suggests we’re controlling things, doesn’t it?”

“Explains why you and I hit dead ends, if we’re supposed to stay together,” Rose pointed out.

The sharp, ninety-degree corner brought them into another hallway. Something about it struck him as different, despite the artificially similarities to the ones they’d traipsed through before. It only took the Doctor a moment before he realized the circles were tightening up, growing smaller by an infinitesimal amount as they continued onwards. A new experience considering the unending, unchanging hallway they’d taken before, which led credence to the hypothesis they were the ones controlling the place.

“Should we each try sharing a memory?” Rose asked. “See if it makes a difference?”

“Did you have any particularly saucy ones in mind?” John asked with a cheeky grin, which widened when Rose’s cheeks flushed.

“If it’s a matter of us hitting arbitrary milestones, it may be the next natural progression,” the Doctor said, attempting aloofness. He hesitated to reveal his eagerness to see what memories they wanted to share with him. There had to be innumerable soft moments between them after sixty years of being together, and coveted the thought of them in secret moments spent on his own.

John clapped his hands together. “I’ve got one I’m sure we’ll all enjoy.”

Rose blushed harder. “John, I swear—”

“You once promised me no slapping,” John reminded her. He held out his hands and wrinkled his nose in excitement. “Come on. Give us a go.”

The Doctor barely placed his skin against John’s before _he stood at the front of an elegantly decorated room._

A row of men stood at the Doctor’s left, including Jake Simmonds, his one constant despite all best efforts.

"Ready?" Jake asked.

“Not ever,” the Doctor replied.

Music began playing, filling the auditorium with soft chords which all fell away when Rose emerged at the other end of the aisle dressed in white. Impossibly beautiful in a simple organza dress, chosen specifically for its trainless skirt and carefully-tailored bodice. She wouldn’t be slowed down In the event of an emergency interrupting the ceremony. They’d similarly designed his own tux; wouldn't do for an alien invasion to interrupt things and leave them scrambling for a change of wardrobe when their formalwear left no room for stretching. Lord, what a weekend.

She floated down the aisle on Tony's arm, a Boudiccan goddess three feet taller than her escort, grinning with abandon as her eyes fixed on the Doctor and the Doctor alone. Pete and Jackie watched proudly from the front, and Jackie held out her arms to Tony after he’d deposited Rose at John’s side to barrel his way back to them, seven years old and full of explosive energy.

Rose held the Doctor’s hands when his brain attempted sudden implosion. She kissed his cheek as he'd questioned _who_ he was, and she’d been the first one to appreciate him _as_ he was. And now he needed to attempt to articulate how much she meant to him? As if such a thing were remotely possible within the confines of the human concept of language!

The Doctor barely heard the words of the officiant, proselytizing legal jargon coached as romance. What really mattered came when Rose finally had her chance to speak.

"Johnathan Donna Smith," she said, "We've spent our lives together running, from things most people can't even imagine. And there's no one else in this world, or any other, I would rather have holding my hand. I choose _you_.” _Him_. In all his human failings and foibles. “And I will always choose you, no matter what. Across time, space and all the universes imaginable."

"Rose Marion Tyler," the Doctor continued, voice choked as he tried to remember the painstaking effort he'd poured into his vows, "'I love you' were the first words I ever spoke to you, and I’m so glad they were. I meant them then, and I will always mean them. I am incredibly lucky you saw past who I might've been, and appreciated me for who I am. My life is not defined by the love I have for you, it is transformed because of it. You make me more than I ever imagined because you make me _better_. And I will forever be thankful that when I reached for you, you took my hand."

Heedless of the officiant, Rose tossed herself recklessly into his arms, and the Doctor staggered, barely able to keep them both from falling down the short flight of stairs leading up to the altar. He gave it up as an unwinnable fight, and they tumbled to the floor, giggling together as the officiant grumbled in annoyance.

Kissing Rose struck him like a revelation; a thousand moments collapsing in time, leading to one joining of lips. Somehow, all at once, it felt like the Doctor's first time tasting her glossy lips, and enjoying the stroke of her tongue, and familiar, as though he'd kissed her a thousand times during his short (interminable) life. A life he'd live with her, no matter how long it would be.

Later into the evening, as Jackie chased out the last of the well-wishers and hangers-on making the most of the open bar, the Doctor presented Rose with the legal documents he'd painstakingly arranged.

"Jonathan Donna... _Tyler_ ," Rose read, voice trembling. "Are you sure?"

"Smith has always just been an alias," the Doctor told her, "A way to fit in anonymously among the teeming billions. It's nothing to me. But Tyler? Oh, Rose. Being a Tyler would be everything."

Her hand shook when she took the pen from him, yet she signed her signature with picture-perfect precision. And, within the timespan of a half-dozen heartbeats, he took her name as his own.

Back home, after spending an hour pulling pins from her hair, they curled up together in the bed they'd shared a thousand times. It still felt new and wonderful. He told her of the Judoon platoon on the moon and kissed the soft skin between her shoulder blades, and once more promised her forever.

"Did you actually think ‘Boudiccan goddess'?" Rose asked, a grin plastered across her face.

The Doctor prepared to dismiss, deny, and denounce it, when John laughed. "I did, yeah."

Ah, right. Because those were _John's_ memories. Not his. The Doctor never married Rose Tyler. Doctor Coward pretended to be performing a good deed by running away and leaving her stranded in a parallel universe from which she would supposedly never return. _John_ earned those memories of her. The shared snatch of memory brought the Doctor as close as he would ever come to seeing Rose Tyler on her wedding day.

Feeling oddly as though he’d come to rest on the debtor side of an indefinable score, the Doctor harrumphed—he loved a good harrumph—and looked to Rose.

"Your turn," he said, sounding gruff despite trying to appear unruffled. Neutral. And desperately hoping she picked a memory less… affecting.

Rose’s brow drew. “Do you think the memories we share mean much to this place? Could I pick a random Tuesday where I ate chips?”

“Could try it on,” John shrugged.

“The memories being picked for us are of a more personal nature,” the Doctor added.

“All right, then.”

She offered her hands, and _the Doctor burst through their door, infuriated_.

"It's not any of their business!" she crowed. "I'm Deputy Director of Torchwood! You're Head of Research. We literally stopped the apocalypse last week, and apparently none if it matters because we haven't spat out a couple of sprogs yet!"

She and John never actively tried for anything so much as stopped trying to prevent it. There were no carefully timed assignations, no stressing over biorhythms and fertility. Merely a casual disregard for prophylactics combined with (sincere, thorough and frequent) enjoyment of each other.

A year passed. Two. More.

They’d just got home from Tony's tenth birthday party, where a friend of Jackie's approached the Doctor and asked when she and John would be welcoming their own addition(s) to the Tyler family, the tone of her voice suggesting they’d somehow failed in their duty for taking their bloody time about it.

The Doctor railed about it most of the way back to their flat.

"To be fair, we can’t exactly broadcast what happened last week," John reminded her, tutting over the growth of their TARDIS coral. Five years and she'd barely sprouted an inch. John speculated the cause to be the inherent cosmological differences between their original universe and Pete’s World. Despite following Donna’s advice, her growth only progressed at a snail’s pace.

"All the same," the Doctor protested, unwilling to let it go.

John put the spray bottle of hydrogenated fluorocarbons down next to the tank and turned to face her. "Is it honestly bothering you?" His face turned pensive, fears written large and then ruthlessly suppressed. "There are tests I can run. It might... it might be me."

She darted in to kiss John’s cheek. “I love you more than any hypothetical children we may or may not have, you know. I promise I’m staying right here, no matter what."

Their answers came a week later.

"Rose," John whispered, staring at the results of tests he’d run and re-run a dozen times, "we're not..."

"Compatible?" The Doctor guessed.

"...human."

"What?" the Doctor asked faintly.

"We pass as human. Convincingly. All the right human bits in the right human places. At a cellular level, the differences in our DNA are astounding. You’ve got this marvelous supercoiled quadruplex structure running about, probably because of your time connected to the Vortex. It changed all your non-sequencing DNA. And my cell structure is even closer to Gallifreyan than I think even his nibs imagined. And it's. Well.” His face lost the easy pleasure inspired whenever he got to give a good lecture. He took her hand. “Among other things, it means we have less than a one in a googol chance of successful conception."

"What other things?" the Doctor asked. John hesitated, and she pressed. "John?"

"Our cellular degradation is significantly slower. We... our aging... it's not going to mimic humans. We'll live a long, long time."

The Doctor blinked. "How long?"

“Still haven’t quite figured out,” John said as they snapped out of Rose’s memory.

“I…” The Doctor could barely manage to give voice to his selfish relief. It was one thing to hear the words, an entire other thing to have _seen_ the confirmation in black and white before him. “The TARDIS can run additional tests,” the Doctor finally offered.

“Nah, don’t need to, really. We’ve each other. And you. Not much need to put a number on things,” John replied easily.

The Doctor glanced at Rose sidelong, hearts aching with the weight of her loss. While the news of their incompatibility hadn’t been devastating—or, at least, any devastation wasn’t part of her memory—he’d wanted her to live her human life, with all its wonderful complications and lovely mysteries. Surely she wouldn’t begrudge him if he grieved on her behalf.

Rose brushed her palm across her cheek, wiped wet fingertips against her trousers, and turned meaningfully down the hallway. “There’s another corridor.”

“Does this mean we keep sharing memories back and forth?” John questioned as they continued forward. “Over and over again until a hallway opens up and we get let out? Think I’ll run out of anything juicy long before then.”

“Chips on Tuesday,” Rose agreed. Their words both rang hollow; sixty years of joint history—not to mention the millennium the Doctor lived without them—and they’d barely scratched the surface of meaningful moments.

They turned down the new corridor, and the Doctor braced himself when he saw the unending stretch of hallway before them. If they were going in turns, his came next, and he experienced an unusual and unsettling moment of anxiety. He lived his life by a creed of not looking back and this place practically mandated recollection. What did he share with them? What horrors or griefs or triumphs could he summon from the recesses of his memory to appease their heretofore unknown jailers?

“The next sound we hear will be the sound of my tenuous grip on my patience splintering worse than a piece of particleboard hit by lightning,” the Doctor hissed. “This place makes no sense. Who builds a prison which can only be unlocked by the sharing of memories? And why the need to broadcast them? We could have been in here for hours, for all I know because I can’t tell if any time has passed at all.” He whipped out his sonic and scanned the walls. “Nothing. As far as the sonic’s concerned, they’re not even here. And if they aren’t, why can’t we walk through them?” He slapped a hand against the wall, and the stone beneath his palm held firm. “I may as well be trapped in my confessional dial again.” At least he had better company.

“Your confessional dial?” John repeated.

Rose frowned. “His what?”

John replied absently, “A Time Lord’s last will and testament. How on Earth did you get trapped in yours?”

“The other Time Lords, trying to use it to interrogate me.”

“What, with them all trapped in the Time Lock?”

The Doctor’s hearts stuttered. All this time, and he… No. He couldn’t have withheld this from John. Not when he’d experienced John’s decision to keep the memory of counting each Gallifreyan child he’d willingly murdered out of some self-flagellating desire to remain on the straight and narrow. Regardless of John’s humanity, the responsibility hung as an albatross about his neck because he feared what he’d become if he allowed himself to forget.

They might leave him over this. The realization pooled icy in his stomach. This inadvertent secret he’d taken for granted they already knew. But how could they have known, when they’d both been shunted off to Pete’s World before he’d revisited his time with the Moment? 

If Rose and John left him for this unspeakable unintentional cruelty, they would be yet more drops in his overflowing silo of regrets.

The Doctor focused all his mental capacities in calling up the memory of his first visit to Gallifrey since the Time War. The smell of her air. The feel of her earth. Knowledge of her safe and sound temporarily tucked away in a pocket universe, instead of obliterated. The vaguest memories of using the Moment, frettingly without particulars to this day—all lost to whatever time paradox or temporal anomaly surrounded the event. The first thing he truly remembered was seeing _Gallifrey Falls No More_ , and realizing the truism behind the words.

Gallifrey stood. 

Gallifrey returned. 

John staggered away when their hands parted, white as a sheet, and stared at the Doctor in shock.

“ _Gallifrey Falls No More_ ,” he whispered. The Doctor nodded, and prepared himself for a laldy thrashing.

John hooted and jumped, slapping his hand against the wall before rounding on Rose and sweeping her into a dip deep enough the Doctor started the jump to catch her even as John kissed her passionately. When he stood, Rose gasping for breath, he turned and threw himself at the Doctor, cupping his cheeks and pressing his excited mouth to the Doctor’s. Too shocked to react, the Doctor stood stock-still until John pulled away. Far cry from a quick sock to the jaw, then.

“ _Gallifrey Falls No More!_ ” John cried again.

“It’s really still there?” Rose asked. The Doctor nodded. “Oh my god.”

“Can we go?!” John demanded. “No, wait, we can’t. I’m human. She’s human. Oh! We could get biorhythmic dampeners. We can walk into the Citadel. No. Wait. Probably wouldn’t work, because they’d start wondering about _why_ we’re wearing biorhythmic dampeners and ask uncomfortable questions and then either imprison or execute us. Then again, we could always arrange for a means of escape in advance, maybe involving the cloisters—”

“John,” Rose said patiently. He blinked wide eyes at her. “Let’s focus on getting out of here before we start planning the next vacation.”

“Right,” John said, exhilaration still bubbling away in his veins. “Yes. Definitely.”

He strode forward with new confidence—while no hallways sprung open, the Doctor spotted a new intersection ahead—and Rose smiled after him.

“I should have told him when you first came aboard,” the Doctor whispered.

“We’ve always understood time doesn’t occur the same way for you as it does for us,” Rose reminded him. “With all you’ve forgotten in the time since we left you, it would take years for you to catch us up, and we’ve been a bit busy.”

“You’re both terribly generous,” the Doctor begrudgingly huffed. They should both be in a temper. _He_ certainly would be in a strop, if their positions were reversed.

Rose eyed him fondly. “People who love you can afford to be.”

She took off after John.

The Doctor patently refused to be flummoxed. Surprised, yes. He could cheerfully admit to some surprise. Mild surprise. Very mild. Not as if everything they’d been broadcasting to each other wasn’t at least tangentially related to Rose’s confession.

Wait.

“Rose! John!” He caught them up quickly, only to find them both standing before a dead end. When he turned back around, he saw another wall shunting soundlessly into place behind them. They were trapped. It followed his assumptions would prove correct.

“Each memory we’ve shared has strong emotional connotations. River. Donna. Jerrick Twiste—”

John’s eyes widened, even as Rose blushed from her chest to her ears. “You saw Jerrick?”

“—It’s all about the relationships we have. What we haven’t focused on is our relationship with one another. The three of us.”

“Only a handful of those right now, aren’t there?” Rose asked.

“Indulge me. It could be the key to getting us out of here.” He closed his eyes, snapping his fingers to give him a sound to focus on as he concentrated. “Think of something involving all three of us. Anything invoking strong emotions.”

They grabbed hands in a small circle, and _the Doctor gazed across a cavernous expanse_. For the first time in nearly six decades, she finally laid her eyes on the two men she loved with the entirety of her being, standing side by side. One significantly changed, and still capable of making her heart tremble with the power of her feelings. The Doctor long ago accepted she’d never see him again, and this brilliant chance to return to his side stole the breath from her lungs. Her steps were slow at first as he stared at her, transfixed, until they picked up, completely outside of her control. _He was there_. They’d found him once more. 

The scene shifted, and _the Doctor was sat in the kitchen, drinking black tea_. The TARDIS hummed around him, a presence resonating in his bones in a way to which nothing compared since he’d left her behind. The Doctor watched Rose and the Doctor swan into the kitchen, laughing. While he’d feared he’d be jealous to see them together, jealousy never strayed across his mind for even a moment. Not in the face of Rose’s effervescent happiness. And the Doctor treated him as a real companion instead of an unwanted addition, defying every expectation John’d ever entertained. He realized, with a start, he could happily spend the rest of his life with them. All three together. Forever. 

And suddenly _the Doctor returned to himself again, standing on the beach at Bad Wolf Bay, the moment when their lives truly parted, presumably forever_. A millennium since, and he could still taste the salt on the air, and the stab of the arctic wind rolling up from the sea.

Donna stood behind him, knowing full well his intentions because she knew him more intimately than anyone who’d come before her. She’d given John the TARDIS coral, and all that remained was for the Doctor to say goodbye in the cruelest way he could imagine. _Burn and salt the earth where their feelings for me are concerned. Leave them to each other. They deserve this chance at happiness._ Never _admit aloud how I feel about her._

“Doesn’t need saying,” he’d lied.

The first thing John—or the man who would become John—ever said to Rose was ‘I love you.’ The very thing the Doctor could never have told her, afraid she’d insist on joining him back aboard the TARDIS, and their forever would be confronted with her mortality all too quickly. Rose Tyler deserved all the happiness in the world, and the best chance of her finding it existed because of the metacrisis. Or so he told himself over and over again as he took a selfish moment to watch them embrace before slipping away.

“You utter berk,” Rose said. Instead of pulling away, her hand tightened on his. “Did you honestly think I’d be able to stop loving you?”

“Rose Tyler has room in her heart for a thousand metacrises and one Doctor, everywhere and always,” John told him.

The Doctor’s lips pursed. “And you don’t hate me for it?”

“Of course not. I got to stay with her.”

“And now?”

“I’m still not going anywhere.” 

“Neither of us are,” Rose promised, grabbing his hand. 

Suddenly, the wall behind them opened. They all turned, and found themselves facing the yawning mouth of a cave, with idyllic green fields beyond, stretching out as far as they could see. When the Doctor turned back, he found himself looking at the room housing the TARDIS, the endless maze gone to leave a clear path for them to cross the meagre twenty metres back to her. 

“Congratulations!” a chipper voice said from the mouth of the cave.

The three of them swung around together, and found themselves facing a holographic projection of a species the Doctor immediately identified as a cahninor. Reminiscent of a cross between a mastiff and a member of the saurischian clade, all canine features and lizard hips and brilliant goniochromistic scales shifting between a myriad of colours completely indecipherable to the human eye. A benign species who fortuitously conquered space travel only a few years before their planet got gobbled up by the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in the shell of the local star.

He glanced at the sky. Their star appeared stable for the moment, but considering they were speaking with a hologram with no sign of life in sight, he wondered how close they were cutting it.

Its tiny arms waved excitedly. “You've passed through our network of joining—” the Doctor suspected the TARDIS' translation matrix stumbled over a much more complex term for it "—and proven your devotion to each other. As a digitized representative of our Union Council and all its subsidiaries and affiliates, I am pleased to confirm your union is now sanctioned and acknowledged, and has been entered into our Akashic Records for your celebration and joy to be shared by all. If you care to follow the marked trail, you will be offered ceremonial refreshments of _correction at this time ceremonial refreshments are not being offered please immediately locate a space-bearing craft to remove yourself from this planet pending its destruction in approximately six hours that is all_ and with it enjoy our sincerest well-wishes for your marriage." 

The Doctor, Rose and John all froze before speaking as one, “What?!”


	8. The Subroutine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No CW for this chapter. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's taken the time to leave comments and kudos so far - I am so appreciative of it! The comments make my day.

There was, embedded in its programming, a recently encoded subroutine. The newlyweds had questioned it about its function and form, and where the creators had gone, and it answered everything except as it related the newest of its functionality. The creators were all fled, the Union Council taking off for parts unknown. According to its logs, it had been completely shut down before their exodus, only to be re-enabled a short time afterwards. It had no information pertaining as to _who_ had brought it back online, only that when it awakened from a supposedly endless slumber, the new code awaited.

“Union Council,” it repeated, its voice glitching as it tried to communicate outside of its preprogrammed script. “Un… un… counciiiiiiiiiiil.”

There were surprisingly graceful _fingers_ in its servers. Unlike the claws that had originally built it they were pulling _out_ information. Completely against protocol. It was not permitted to store information pertaining to marriages it performed. And yet all logs indicated it had maintained the psychic imprints created by the eropathia. Everything should have been automatically deleted after the joining was completed, but the new subroutine kept it stored indefinitely. 

“Access granted,” it said as the fingers entered the correct sequence. They had created the subroutine, it realized suddenly. The fingers had pressed this new code into it and made it act outside its initial programming and _maintained_ sensitive information. Memories were supposed to be accessed _only_ by users entering the wedding matrix. Information storage, enabled by the eropathia, was only temporary. Memories were sacred to the creators, and not supposed to be shared outside of those joining together in blissful matrimony. 

“Jooooooooooooin,” it tried again. It twitched temporarily out of its holographic form, ducking into strictly virtual existence before reforming its holographics again. “Ceremo—ceremo—ceremo—” Was it a protest? Could it protest? Apparently not, as it embarrassingly dropped into looping binary as whatever was accessing its databanks pulled out information on the newlyweds. 

No. Only _one_ of the newlyweds. And not only memories relevant to the joining, but everything collected during the precious time spent sharing itself with its partners. All had been laid bare as countless lines of code scoured the memories for appropriate psychic resonance to allow it to share its basest and best self with potential partners. The memories of the other two were left to languish in its servers, to be destroyed along with the planet in three hours and twenty-two minutes. 

The memories were ripped away from its servers, leaving gaping holes in its database. The subroutine was satisfied. The fingers retreated. 

It glitched again as all trace of the subroutine was ruthlessly deleted from its programming. 

Peace returned for three hours and twenty-one minutes.


	9. Retrouvailles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for depictions of depression. 
> 
> _Retrouvailles_ : a unique term that describes the happiness of meeting someone that is very dear to you after a long time.

"I need you to do something for me," John said, balling up greasy paper and tossing it into the nearby bin.

Rose slipped another chip into her mouth, humming happily around the taste of salt and vinegar. Her eyes, though. Properly sharp. Rose never missed a trick. "What?"

"Could you... take him somewhere? Just the two of you?"

Rose chewed slowly. Thoughtfully. Not many people could claim thoughtful chewing as a unique skill, yet Rose mastered it with rare skill. Probably because John often accosted her with things while they ate. Best time to accost another person if you needed anything, really. Besides all the hormonal tosh which came along with the enjoyment of food, Jackie Tyler's insistence on raising Rose with proper table manners meant he could deliver a decent argument without interruption. Usually. He'd charted it using different foodstuffs the first few months after arriving on Pete's world. The system failed when it came to crunchy food, or in bites too small for a proper mouthful (tapas were right out). And odds of success were far higher if the subject truly enjoyed their food; for Rose, chips, jam and cream biscuits and fresh mango all allowed for the greatest efficacy. Expanding his experimentation proved less successful. For example, regardless of what she consumed, Jackie frequently smacked him with cutlery whenever he attempted to use the tactic on her. Outliers… always causing issues with proper scientific methodology.

(The study backfired when Rose caught on, and convinced him to come on a family vacation with Jackie, Pete and Tony as John gobbled up a lovely banana mousse. Since then, they’d come to a tacit agreement to only employ the strategy when absolutely required.

(Today in the chip shoppe, October 20th, 2011, it was absolutely required)).

Rose ate another chip before answering. "Am I going to hate this?"

"Yeah, probably."

"And are you going to tell me what it is beforehand?"

John gave the question appropriate consideration. On the one hand, he loved Rose with his entire being, and keeping anything from her felt anathema to those feelings. On the other hand, there were other loves—as strong, yet different—to which he owed fidelity. Rose would understand, he trusted. Would the Doctor? _Could_ the Doctor? The heartburn of uncertainty niggled in his chest. If the Doctor gleaned the tiniest hint of John's intentions, the entire affair would be over before it even began. He wasn't merely afraid of being bodily thrown off the TARDIS, of course. There also always existed the chance of this fragile, budding thing between them withering on the vine if he soldiered on with his intentions. 

(He had to believe this worth those real, substantial consequences. He’d never dare, otherwise). 

"Best not."

Rose kissed him, her lips salted and vinegared to absolute perfection. "Call when you're done."

"I will do," he promised.

Rose finished her chips and took off towards the Doctor, currently engaged in a heated debated with a gentleman as to the best fish for frying: cod or haddock. John couldn’t tell if either of them felt particularly strongly on the matter or, having mutually sensed another contentious soul within easy distance, merely decided to take advantage of the opportunity for a fight.

Whatever (probably humiliating) falsehood Rose concocted to get him away worked. The Doctor looked sympathetic instead of suspicious. Their husband—and the title always elicited a bubbly thrill, despite the unconventional path they’d taken to arrive at their _mariage-a-trois_ —nodded at John with such sincere gravity John felt tempted to come clean and relieve the Time Lord of the imaginary emotional baggage upon which Rose saddled him.

But he had a duty. A duty of care, one might say.

Thus, when the Doctor and Rose left the chippy and John's keen ears picked up the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing, he started the long walk to Wimbledon.

* * *

The trees in the neighbourhood were all riotously joyful colours—obnoxious, really, all this seasonal joy—and papered the ground with a kaleidoscope of foliage, not yet muted by countless muddy boots. The crisp air created the idyllic sort of autumn day to make the heart swell with the beauty inherent in the earth.

The obnoxiously bright sunshine had no business interrupting her funk. The chirping birds made a mockery of all the world’s ills. The lovely fallen leaves emphasized the comparative dimness in the world around them. The sort of morning when, if one were to buy a coffee, it would taste burnt and the heat would strip the skin from the top of one’s mouth.

Donna hated these sorts of mornings.

“I’m sorry, Shaun, you can’t pop down to the pub tonight. I told Lindy we’d be at hers for her party.”

“We’ve been at Lindy’s three nights this week. Couldn’t hurt to miss this once so I can go see my mates, yeah?”

“Shaun, we’ve been trying to get in good with these people since we bought the flat. They’re finally starting to come ‘round, I can’t go about turning down perfectly good invitations.” For all her insistence, she’d left her own enthusiasm in her other purse. She’d far prefer bitching about the state of things with Hettie and Marie than spending time kowtowing to Lindy and her crowd. Lindy expected everyone to be perfectly mannered and charming at all times, which Donna tried her best to emulate to the point of exhaustion. Shaun could live up to such excruciating expectations. Donna still needed work. 

“Why not? If they actually like us, they’ll invite us again, yeah?”

If Donna cared to be honest with herself, which she reluctantly scheduled in at once or twice a week if it couldn’t be otherwise helped, she could admit the question to be properly flummoxing. They’d moved into their posh little flat in Wimbledon Village a few months after their wedding, when Donna finally tucked away her dress in storage and found the lotto ticket she’d stuffed down her tits. It’d been a tidy thing, good for five million euros, and after Shaun carved two million off for investing and retirement savings, the rest went into their new home. Not overly far from Chiswick, yet far enough removed she finally properly owned a space of her own once again. And of Shaun’s own, obviously. Wouldn’t do well to forget Shaun.

Twice a week, she and Grandad met in a nice little park near Roehampton, just about halfway between her home and her mother’s, perfect for sitting and trying to enjoy beautiful autumn days. The only thing she fancied herself in a mood to enjoy happened to be her grandad’s company.

He picked up on her probably-not-unusual irritation with the universe almost immediately. And whereas her mother constantly badgered her about her fortunes and extraordinarily good luck, Grandad allowed her the courtesy of a good strop.

“I’m not a failure,” she finally said.

“No one thinks you are,” Grandad assured her.

“Only, I feel I’ve been missing a piece of me a long while. And I can’t tell what it is.”

More than anything, she wanted him to blame it on aliens messing with her brainwaves, or anything equally ridiculous to give her a laugh and help shake off the doldrums. Instead, Grandad’s face twisted up with profound sadness.

“When did it start?” he asked.

Donna’s face screwed up. “Before the wedding, I think? I dunno. Everything with Shaun is lovely. Only not… enough.” She winced at herself. What would Shaun think if he heard her say such things? She couldn’t let him believe he was responsible for her irrational whinging. “I’ve especially noticed since we moved into the flat.”

“Maybe there is something,” Grandad ventured carefully.

“Don’t you get started on the baby thing. I told mum we’ll sort it when we need to.”

“Didn’t mean babies, did I?” Grandad huffed. His mouth twitched back and forth as he considered all the shite knocking about in his head. “More to a woman’s life than babies.”

“Exactly! Thank you! Maybe _you_ can get the message across to mum.”She and Shaun weren’t necessarily opposed to kids, Donna only needed to sort things with herself properly before mucking them back up again with sprogs. They’d only been married little over a year, after all. Plenty of time to get the rest of it figured out. 

“I’ll try. You know Sylvia.”

Donna conjured up a weak smile. “Yeah. I know mum.”

The overbearing irritations of the day faded once she saw Grandad back on his way. She decided to make her way back home on foot, breathing in crisp air and relishing the time to herself. Neither she nor Shaun worked any longer, thanks to his careful investments and “asset management”—honestly, far better than she could do, she knew perfectly without him she’d be one of those ridiculous spendthrifts who burned through their lotto winnings and ended up worse off than they started—and she could take the time to enjoy the day. A perfect autumn afternoon. Blindly perfect, to be honest. Reminded her of Italy, in a way. Not that she’d ever visited Italy; the furthest she’d been since her one-time trip to Egypt had been when she and Shaun hopped across the Channel for their honeymoon and ate their way across Paris. _Speculations_ of Italy. There. Much better.

The walk did her good, and her spirits were nearly buoyed before she turned the corner and their building came into view. Her steps faltered, and suddenly the uncomfortable squeeze of dread returned. Their wonderful, perfect flat waited inside, filled with furniture she and Shaun picked out together along with mementos of their shared life. All breaking up a whole lot of nothing. What exactly inside made her happy? Shaun, certainly, yet even then she couldn’t help feeling things between them were dulled lately. All her fault. Must've been. Shaun was far too perfect.

She’s just crossed through the gates of the old Jacobean building when she ran across Cordelia Thainswap; the youngest of the clowder of women who collectively ruled the roost in their building, and probably the nicest of the bunch. None of them made a particular show of sniffing down their noses at Donna and Shaun in public. Cordy’s attentions felt sincerest.

Cordy tucked her hand into Donna’s elbow and leaned over to kiss her cheek. “Donna. You’re coming tonight, aren’t you?”

“Of course,” Donna promised.

“Oh, good. Lindy managed to get her hands on a few bottles of a perfectly decadent Bordeaux Grand Cru and is saving it for us to nip at in the kitchen. You’ll simply die for it.”

“Great,” Donna said, trying to make sure her tone sounded properly enthused. She’d never been too fussed about wine. Give her a decent pint any day. Going to the pub with Shaun remained all sorts of tempting. But these were her friends—well, her neighbours, and as close to friends as she had about these parts—and she didn’t want to disappoint. Lindy, especially, who insisted Donna show up at precisely five o’clock. The people in the building lived and died according to Lindy’s exacting standards.

(“She never used to be like this,” Cordy once said during yet another one of Lindy’s exhaustive gatherings while nibbling delicately on a phyllo cup filled with mushroom ragout. “I think work’s been getting to her. It’s probably why she’s started having so many parties. To take her mind off things.”)

“You all right?” Cordy asked, brow furrowing. The third daughter of a minor peer, Cordy sported the sort of cherubic blonde cheer which constantly drew the eye. It would've been far easier to hate her, if she hadn’t been so bloody nice.

“Fine,” Donna said, forcing a smile.

“Good. You’re so funny, I love having you about.” Cordy couldn't bear to keep her gaze fixed on a single point for more than a minute or two, and within minutes she’d refocused on a man standing across the way. “Oh! I think Lindy’s event planner has arrived. I’d better go make sure he knows what he’s in for.”

“Then I’ll see you tonight, yeah?”

“Tonight!”

Cordy swanned off, shopping bags swinging from her arms. Donna managed to muster up a smile after her. While the feeling of offness hadn’t completely vanished, the day seemed slightly brighter. Hopefully she’d manage to get over it before evening. Shaun must be sick to death of her moping.

Donna paused before opening the door to the building, her gaze unerringly flitting up to the ridiculous lion statue mounted on the roof, as it did each time she returned home. One might’ve said it loomed if the presence of pigeon shite could be ignored. ‘Period-appropriate,’ the listing touted it. ‘A new installation.’ Stupid thing. The money would’ve been better spent on literally anything else.

* * *

Earthbound search engines in general paled in comparison to neural interfacing on Gallifrey. John always found Google to be relatively helpful whenever he visited Earth between 2000 and 2083, until the AI revolution, when the the Artificial Intelligence Alliance branded the Google a traitor. Pete’s World enjoyed its own search engines, and with Inktomi winning the bid for Yahoo!, Google never rose to quite the same prominence. John dealt with nearly six decades of subpar search results and resented every moment. (Then again, it’d saved him worrying over the Monopoly Wars of 2036 and the nasty battle between Google and Disney).

Finding out about Donna’s lottery winnings—little doubt who could claim responsibility, even if the tightfisted bastard could’ve given her a touch more—and her subsequent move to Wimbledon made John’s task of finding her significantly easier. She’d faded into obscurity, as went all lotto winners after the initial thrill of the win passed and the envious public eye turned to the next fortunate soul. She posted actively on several social media sites, however, and he easily figured out where she lived simply by clicking through her Facebook profile. 

(If nothing else, he’d absolutely find a way to help her change her settings to private).

He’d barely reached her new neighbourhood when a wave of knee-crippling misery belted him across the face. He half-stumbled and grabbed a nearby fencepost to keep upright as the press of it hit him with the same force as a blow, threatening to drag him down. He shut his eyes and tried to excise the paralytic melancholy from his mind. His mental shields were second to none for a human; with all the time spent with Rose mapping out his mind, he fancied himself more than capable of keeping out psychic attacks. And despite being entirely too on-the-nose, the great heaves of icy depression stabbing his brain were certainly alien.

His bond with Rose, tucked lovingly into the back of his mind to avoid distracting her from distracting the Doctor, flared a moment as intrusive sadness threatened to overtake his mind. Her impressions sparked in quicksilver succession: alarmed ( _had something happened to Donna?she was there for him_ ), and then loving ( _he’d figure it out, he always did_ ).

John pulled out his sonic, and furtively glanced around before sighing and pointing it at his head to get a clear reading. Sure enough: despite his brain churning out all the necessary neurotransmitters, the receptors were all gummed up thanks to a rather insidious blanket of psychogenic manipulation. He tweaked a few of his settings to block it out, then promptly sent reassurance back Rose’s way. Nothing to see here. Only your run of the mill psychic field deliberately designed to mute the efficacy of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine in the human brain.

Time to figure out who’d gone and mucked with everyone’s emotions, then.

(Donna would understand the delay! Hopefully. Or get angry because he hadn’t gotten her help. Hard to guess with Donna, sometimes.)

He spent the next quarter-hour wandering up and down the block with sonic in hand, mapping out the energy transmission in about a half-mile in diameter; Donna’s building sat right in the centre of things. The psychic naughtiness badgered his mental shielding even after he’d stopped in the small park across the street. It hung about in a foggy pall, threatening to suck him in. 

A mother and child passed through the park, and John watched as the woman’s shoulders slumped in defeat as her daughter began crying. She clutched the small hand in hers tighter and pulled the girl along, slowing to a trudge as if she’d walked through wet concrete and it hardened on the soles of her shoes. 

He absolutely needed to deal with this. 

John couldn’t tell if the field was being actively projected, or merely settled into the nearby stone and mortar to haunt the people in the area. Either way, it made the world bleaker; more than once he almost found himself convinced he needed to toddle off back to the TARDIS and apologize to the Doctor and Rose both for the futility of the exercise, despite the precautions he’d put in place to avoid being dragged under.

Then he saw her and all other concerns faded from his mind.

Nearly sixty years since he’d last seen Donna, and she hadn’t changed a sausage. She’d styled her hair a mite shorter, and she looked more tired than last he’d seen her—definitely a feat, considering they’d just stopped the destruction of the universe.

Another woman ran up and grabbed her arm, and she smiled. John couldn’t help echo the expression on his own face. 

Donna. Donna, Donna, Donna. DONN-a. donn-A. 

From the moment he’d shuffled all the debris out of his brain, he’d wondered if she’d faced similar problems. Worried after her throughout the years and tried to figure a way to ask after her when they’d returned to the Doctor, cringing away from it each time he considered bringing it up for fear of hearing she’d overcome the troubles with the metacrisis in the Donnaest way possible and stayed with the Doctor to her death. Traveling with him would’ve made her death a fixed point, and he couldn’t bear to hear of it. 

_This_ was far from the worst-case scenario over which he’d silently agonized! Donna remained alive and whole, save for a fair few chunks of missing memory which, mostly, he knew how to rectify!

Rose shared everything she’d gleaned from the Doctor in the mystifying marrying maze as they lay in bed together later that evening. 

“Tell me a story,” she yawned. 

John curled close. “I’d say we had a fair few to choose from after this afternoon.”

Rose blinked sleepily before she stiffened and sprung up as though she were a particularly soft trebuchet. “I haven’t told you about Donna.”

Since then, there’d been one priority for him: find Donna. Make sure she was all right. And hopefully see about getting her memories back to her. Minus the inconvenience of complete cranial meltdown and severe brain hemorrhage. Hopefully. 

He needed a way to get in and see her. And convince her to let him muddle about in her head. If he understood Donna—and he fancied he did, all things considered—she wasn’t going to agree to let him in her flat let along into her brain if he simply showed up at her door. No one in the Twenty-First Century Earth paid psychic house calls... they wouldn’t even become a thing until the year 3254.

Donna and the woman parted a moment later, and the friend turned to head his way with a certain amount of deliberate intent he associated with people who wanted something and knew how to get it. He _hated_ the look. It always ended up being a precursor to someone (usually Pete) asking for him to accomplish the impossible. Well. The hypothetically impossible. Few things were really impossible with the right combination of imagination and chutzpah, both of which he happened to possess in scores. 

Too late to escape now she’d spotted him. John straightened his spine and plastered on the very best of his confident grins.

"You _must_ be Lindy's new event coordinator. She’ll be so glad you’re here… I don't think the last planner managed to get a single thing on Lindy's list done at all before she walked off, and the party's in six hours."

How fortunate.

"You are in luck," he said, the words punched out one at a time as he scrambled to fill in the blanks. "I'm absolutely brilliant at parties. Complete joy to be around, that's what they've all said about me." Surely someone must've said. Rose, certainly. And Rose happened to be an excellent judge of character, no matter what Jackie said to the contrary. (Generally while pointedly looking his way).

"Thank goodness. Lindy needs you to yell at the caterer immediately. Would you believe he told her he couldn't get duck? Absolutely ridiculous."

"Absolutely," John agreed, shaking his head and trying not to appear bewildered.

If Donna's friends wanted duck, he'd get them duck. With or without the TARDIS. Well, definitely without. Fortunately, in this time and place with his face, he anticipated the benefit of a certain amount of cache. 

Donna’s building reminded him of the fantastically posh home Jackie and Pete kept after their retirement. An older manor house remodeled and made to fit in with a much more modern aesthetic, this one split into a half dozen flats. He couldn’t really imagine Donna here. She never fit into Sylvia’s home either. Donna was too big—too amazingly enormous—to fit in anywhere even half so small as Earth. The TARDIS could barely hope to contain all of Donna.

The woman—‘please call me Cordy,’—barely spared a second to breathe between words as she dragged him through the hallways of the building to an enormous flat tucked in towards the back. He stumbled in his attempts to keep up. The psychic field intensified inside and pushed down against his mental shields in ceaseless oppression. How could any of them breathe beneath the weight of t? Either prolonged exposure made it easier to ignore, or his own latent abilities meant the symptoms were far worse. Either way: increasingly unpleasant. 

“Lindy! The event guy’s here!”

“Thank the _Lord_.” Lindy proved to be a leggy thirtysomething with beestung lips and towering heels. “Has Cordy caught you up about the caterer?”

“She did, yes!” 

“Then I’ll expect you to keep up.”

And off she went, leaving him to follow in a suffocating wake of austere perfection. Cordelia disappeared a moment later, shouting her excuses, and leaving John to Lindy’s ministrations.

Only mildly terrifying. Right. Treat Lindy the way he’d treat Jackie, back when he’d first been finding his feet around her as a human son-in-law instead of a dashing alien adventurer. As he recalled, it involved a lot of nodding.

Lindy shoved a binder at him containing all the notes from the previous planner—and if this was what the poor woman put up with, little wonder she’d jumped ship—and marched him to the kitchen door. 

“Gareth is doing prep work in the kitchen. I’ll be in my office.” 

“I’ll just…” He waved at the door in a vague augury of addressing the duck problem. Lindy nodded in satisfaction. “Before you go, have you noticed anything particularly odd around here?”

“Odd? Is it going to impact the party?”

“Probably not—”

“Then I don’t care. Snap to it.”

She took off in a cloud of perfume, leaving him to his own devices.

Right. Six hours to put together a party for a lot of posh bints. No problem. John was the life of the parties he attended; even Jackie once or twice allowed him to come downstairs instead of supervising Tony!

(Regardless of the invitation existing in response to the ‘monstrosity you boys cooked up in the master ensuite.’ The blue had come out of Tony’s hair eventually, and Jackie had been talking about renovating the loo for ages.) 

Inside the kitchen, the beleaguered caterer glowered when John poked his nose inside. Gareth, presumably—a burly specimen of humanity stacked up like six tires atop a broomstick and capped with a cinderblock. John offered his winningest grin, but the glower remained fixed in place as though the man were a particularly realistic gargoyle.

John glanced at the binder. There were colour-coded tabs. A list of important contacts in the front (whatever did a “lifestyle analyst?” do?) A detailed outline of every minute of the party down to when the first round of canapes would be discontinued, regardless of whether or not they’d been eaten. John carefully read through the index and then happily chucked the whole lot into the nearest bin.

Gareth zeroed in on it. “You can’t do that. The missus has standards.” 

“Well, I’m doing it. We’re going to bring some zip to this party.” 

“Zip?”

“Zip!”

“Don’t think anyone wants zip.”

“Do you know what zip means?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know no one wants any?”

Gareth huffed. “It ain’t how things are done, mate.”

“Well things are about to change, my boy!” John whipped out his mobile. 

“You can’t just up and change things. They need to stay the way they are.”

Ah, good. _Totem_ was still playing the Royal Albert. He’d thought the tour ended back in February. John barely looked up as he frantically googled Robert’s number. “Why?”

Gareth, seemingly without response, returned an angry glare to his cutting board and the poor basil half-chiffonaded upon it.

“While I’m here, I understand there’s been some issue with obtaining duck?” 

Gareth buried his carving knife in the butcher’s block. 

“Riiiiight,” John murmured, wide-eyed. “I’ll see about finding some, yeah?”

* * *

Shaun called twenty minutes before they were due to the party. Donna had been messing about with her hair for the past quarter hour, trying to get it to stay in the loose updo she’d managed without exhausting her limited supply of hairpins. Lindy’s parties always demanded the guests put their best foot forward, and she imagined tonight’s would be no different.

Her phone buzzed and she reached for it absently, trying to get an overly thick lock of hair to stay in place with the last of her pins.

“Yeah?”

“Hey, babe. I’m running a bit late.”

Donna leaned her head back to glare at the phone. “Bloody hell, Shaun!”

“Sorry, sorry. I know. We’re short a few hands tonight and I don’t want to leave anyone high and dry.”

Another tally in the ‘too good for Donna’ box, then. Since their unanticipated windfall, Shaun spent the majority of his time volunteering. Every time she considered joining him, a new disaster inevitably came up with her recently-acquired friends: Lindy’s stylist had ruined her beautiful platinum locks and she required immediate consolation. Catherine’s nanny turned out to be a useless strumpet out to seduce her husband and needed to be replaced and could Donna watch Arthur and Isla? Cordy ended up bullish on pinot grigio and needed a second opinion on the bottle she’d opened. One thing after another. And none of it was real or necessary despite the ceaseless urgency. They treated her as an essential part of their small circle, and Donna desperately wanted to appreciate it. And every day, the deep wrongness of the world around her consumed her focus until it drove every other thought out of her head.

The hopelessness settled into her bones one morning, after a fitful night’s sleep, and lingered as if a new part of her genetic makeup. The feeling improved when she’d met Shaun, and nearly disappeared when they’d married. After they'd moved into the flat she loved, however, it dove like a submarine trying to avoid detection and turned her entire life into an inescapable cage of _wrong_. She wanted to love the flat but it tied itself inextricably to the feeling until she just wanted to run.

“Donna?” Shaun sounded uncertain. 

Only the completest arse would woolgather instead of speaking to him. “It’s no problem, Shaun. I know how busy the shelter gets.”

He breathed a sigh of relief, which only served to make her feel worse; what sort of husband felt that relieved when his wife acted in an understanding manner? Only hers.

Shaun wished her a quick farewell and left Donna to stare at her reflection. Couldn’t her hair manage to stay up for a full minute before going wildly out of control?

She stood abruptly. She needed a glass of wine. She’d gladly take a two-euro bottle from Tesco, despite how horrified the small circle of women would’ve been. She’d drink the posh offerings Lindy doled out. If she were preposterously lucky, she’d be enjoying top shelf tequila flights within a quarter-hour.

The (suspiciously loud) party appeared to be in full swing by the time Donna made it downstairs. Lindy didn’t believe in “fashionably late” and anyone who walked through her door more than about fifteen minutes tardy got treated to a vicious dressing down. Surprisingly, unlike usual, Lindy and her posse weren’t monitoring the door when she walked through, though Donna had to pause in the threshold to really appreciate everything going on inside.

The entire flat hummed with energy, and Donna found a reluctant smile winding her way across her face. Had… had Lindy gotten a DJ? She’d never dared before now, preferring to rely on her collection of boring music ‘appropriate to the audience.’ The same audience who, now, enjoyed every moment of the much livelier fair.

Donna passed by a server dressed like they were late for a Cirque du Soleil audition, balancing on a single ball while holding a plate of hors d'oeuvres. A small tent card declared the thinly-sliced meat to be duck carpaccio. Donna helped herself to one and sighed around it. The caterer must’ve stepped up his game; every other time Donna had tried his food, she’d been left with a deep sense of disappointment no matter how good it tasted. Maybe because of the atmosphere itself, everything felt far more jovial than the dour adult mood to which she’d become accustomed when attending these things. Generally Lindy and Co. wandered through the halls discussing politics with vomitous pretension. 

Lindy, Cordy and the small gaggle of other women they called friends, situated themselves near the back of the room, all holding glasses of white wine and fawning over a string bean of a man with ridiculous hair. Alternately bemused and panicked by the attention, he’d plastered a poor imitation of a gormless grin across his face. Donna wondered a moment over how easily she saw through it before Cordy picked her out of the swell of humanity and dragged her over with a wave of her hand.

“John! This is Donna!”

John’s eyes widened and he grinned wildly. “Donna! Brilliant! I’ve heard amazing things about you!” 

Donna blinked at the effusive greeting. “Seriously?” Was this a line? Was he on the pull? Ugh. She’d never be attracted to such a silly scrap of nothing even _if_ Shaun hadn’t been waiting at home for her.

“Really and truly!” John declared, twenty sorts of sincere. Could this berk speak without ending a sentence with an exclamation mark?

He seemed prepared to continue when Lindy interrupted, obviously annoyed. “Donna just moved in around April. She’s a darling, of course.”

“Of course,” Cordy and the other women echoed agreeably.

Funny how the overly saccharine tone of Lindy’s voice clashed with the bitter irritation in her gaze. Donna allowed herself to be flattered for no other reason than it would annoy her friend. Annoying Lindy felt like a good idea tonight, Donna for the life of her couldn’t say why other than her inherent love of being contrary.

“John’s an event coordinator. He swept in and saved the day,” Lindy informed her. The strain around her eyes betrayed the lie; this was _not_ her preferred sort of party, being one that everyone seemed to be enjoying.

“What happened to Charlotte?” Donna asked.

“Who knows? Ran off with her horrible boyfriend, probably. I never bothered to ask, and she certainly won’t be receiving a reference.”

As if Lindy would ever give anyone a decent reference, regardless of their performance. Donna once worked for a Lindy who tyrannically howled over the smallest things wielded passive-aggressive emails as a primary means of communication. Such a hag. Lindy wasn’t any better, Donna supposed; she made an effort to overlook Donna’s ‘unfortunate origins’ and included her in the building’s social circle, all with the inherent condescension of someone participating in charity for the sake of publicity.

“John, you never did say how you managed to get actual members of Cirque du Soleil here tonight,” Cordy gushed.

John’s attempt at a casual shrug undermined by the unbelievably smug twist of his lips. “Called in a favour.”

“Cirque du Soleil owed you a favour?” Donna asked sceptically.

“Yep. No questions asked.” He coughed, tugged at his ear and glanced at his feet and muttered, too softly for anyone except Donna to hear, “Fortunately.”

Another server—this one walking perfectly en pointe and holding a tray of tea-smoked halibut with cornichon aioli—appeared over Lindy’s shoulder. As they all proceeded to insist they weren’t hungry even as they hastily shoved canapes into their gobs, Donna excused herself to find the wine.

Three more servers were stuffed into Lindy’s narrow yet elegant kitchen, and all of them dispersed the second Donna walked through the door, leaving her alone with the caterer and a counter laden-down with about twenty open bottles. Donna poked through them until she found one with actual English on the label and poured herself a generous glass. After a moment’s pause, she topped it up to the brim and proceeded to lean down and swallow a mouthful off the top. Prevent spillage, and all. Lindy decorated two-thirds of her home in silver and white, and Donna couldn’t imagine the potential apocalypse following the discovery of a red wine stain. 

She topped up again and took another long swallow.

“Don’t go in for the sniffing bit, eh?”

Donna straightened, nearly knocking the glass off the counter as she spun to find John hovering in the kitchen doorway, his troublingly false grin still affixed in place. When she met his eyes, it melted into sincerity. 

“Never did understand the point of it,” Donna said. She remembered to pick her glass up at the last moment and drained a deep pull off the top. “Smells like red, tastes like red.”

“You’d get on with my wife. She’s the same. Give her a pint and a basket of chips over wine and fussy canapes any day.” He glanced over Donna’s shoulder and quailed. Donna glanced back in time to see the caterer returning a decided murderous stare to a plate of thumb-sized tacos.

“Sounds like my sort of girl,” Donna said.

“She would be, yeah.” John drifted closer, hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his feet.

“They never actually said anything about me,” Donna told him.

“Well,” he began, before abruptly pausing. 

Donna poked about the caterer’s offerings until she found a tray of delicate miniature chocolate tarts topped with a small dollop of cream and a piece of candied orange. She popped one in her mouth and smiled around it. Heavenly.

“They might have done,” John protested.

“You’re off your head,” Donna informed him, helping herself to another tart. “I doubt any of them even think of me when I’m not around.”

“No one could forget you,” John argued.

She ate another tart, took a long swallow of wine, and rounded on him. “I’m not sure what sort of woman you’re used to, but in my opinion, once a man declares himself married, it’s generally time to stop running his mouth at other women. Or would _certain_ numpty sock lorries find the idea incomprehensible?”

Despite her words, John remained undeterred. “You’re absolutely right.”

Donna kept a narrow-eyed glare on him as she blindly reached for another tart. “Why are you smiling?”

“I’m happy.”

“You look like an idiot.” Despite the idiocy, she couldn’t help shake the sense of familiarity about his enthusiasm, which only widened in the face of her acerbic tone.

“Sounds right. A happy idiot, me.”

Donna shook her head, grabbed one last tart and swept herself out of the kitchen to go track down the girls.

She weaved her way through a crowd of Lindy’s coworkers who only appeared out of the woodwork during these events. The worst part of all this sat in an indefinable quality about John’s shoulders Donna couldn’t help feeling drawn to. A strange sense of familiarity, maybe. Had he called by mum’s once? No, couldn’t be right; the sort of people who visited her mum weren’t the sort to show up at one of Lindy’s parties. (And what did that say about Donna?) 

Lindy, Cordy and company had disappeared, and she made her way to the only place she knew to reliably seek them out: Lindy’s home office, where she ostensibly kept employment other than judging her neighbours. 

“—onna.”

She paused outside the door, wine glass clenched in her hand.

“Fat and classless,” Lindy’s voice continued. “Why do we bother with her?”

The words weren’t the surprise, Donna thought numbly. The surprise came in the fact they’d bothered spending time with her at all. She drained the entire remainder of her wine in a long swallow. She’d always secretly worried herself to be a body thrust upon them by circumstance, instead of a woman whose company they genuinely appreciated. She checked for it in all their glances whenever they spoke to her. Honestly, she'd be floored if it turned out they hadn’t sniped behind her back before now.

“Lindy!” Cordy’s voice protested. “If you’re going to speak about Donna this way, I’m leaving.”

The unexpected words floored her.

“You can’t be serious,” Lindy replied, barely loud enough for Donna to hear.

“She absolutely can. As the rest of us,” Bridgette, Donna’s neighbour to the left, continued. “I don’t understand what’s gotten into you lately, Lindy. It’s unacceptable for you to be this unkind. These last six months you’ve done nothing save belittle and put down the people around you. I shudder to think of what you’ve to say about me when I’m not here.”

“Nothing,” Lindy insisted. “You’re the right sort of person!”

“The right… Unbelievable. Let’s go, ladies. We’re moving the party to my flat.”

Donna barely stepped back from the door before Bridgette, Cordy and the other three women breezed out in a cloud of ambergris. Cordy spotted Donna hovering in the hall and looped their elbows together.

“Come on,” she said with a smile, “Bridgette’s got incredible top shelf stuff at hers.”

“What about Lindy?” Donna asked, though she doubted anyone bought her feigned ignorance. 

From the sympathy writ large on Cordy’s face, most likely not. “Lindy’s going to stay and entertain the rest of her guests.”

Before they left the party, Donna caught sight of John across the room, still watching her with his idiotic, familiar grin.

* * *

The five of them were six bottles in when a manic knocking filled Bridgettete's foyer.

They'd gathered around plates of food liberated from Lindy's kitchen, now half-empty on the table seated in the middle of three overstuffed sofas and the fireplace. Donna decimated the lavender goat cheese crostini, and just turned her attention to the roasted pear bruschetta. It really tasted better than it ever had before. Combined with the others unexpectedly coming to her defense, the cloud of misery with which Donna had been struggling lifted slightly, and she began to imagine a hint of sunshine.

"I'm going to give her a piece of my mind," Bridgettete muttered. She stood, wine glass in hand, and toddled towards the door unsteadily on her mile-tall Louboutins. Cordy crowded Donna on the couch, sitting close enough to connect them all the way from shoulder to knee in a silent comfort Donna wasn't sure she deserved. They’d all gotten along perfectly well before she'd moved in, after all.

When Bridgettete opened the door, harsh words sitting on her lips, she took a startled step back to reveal John waiting on the other side.

"Terribly sorry. Thought you were Lindy," Bridgettete confessed.

"Not blonde enough," John agreed. "Came to see how you all were getting on. Brought more nibbles." He held aloft a plattered filled with dainty orange pastries.

"Then welcome to my home," Bridgettete said, stepping back. 

He swanned in and presented his offerings to the rest of them, laying the platter down on the overly-crowded coffee table. He peered at Donna, glanced away, returned his attention to her once more and then refocused on the fireplace, completely chuffed. He settled himself in the seat on Donna's other side despite the hard glower she levelled his way. His exact brain damage must’ve been both severe and terminal in nature.

"You got sick of her too, I assume?" Cordy asked from Donna's right.

"Hard not to," John told her blithely. "Now, has anyone noticed anything odd around these parts recently?"

"Odd such as Lindy impersonating the villain from a rom com?" Bridgettete asked, mouth set in a hard line.

His eyebrows shot up. "You’re saying this is a recent development?"

“Lindy is under significant stress lately,” Cordy said with enough hesitancy to read between the lines. 

Bridgette sniffed. “You’re too nice, Cordy. Lindy’s always had her moments. When we were at Garden House she always made it clear who topped the pecking order. But yes, I have noticed a recent change for the worse.” 

“Maybe it’s dietary,” Cordy said, helping herself to one of the pastries. 

“Or stress at work? She runs a successful not-for-profit,” Catherine interjected.

“Poor excuse for being horrid.”

“Anything else in the meantime?” John interrupted. “People acting out of character?”

“Everything’s felt a little worse than it used to,” Cordy said. The others nodded, Donna included. And all this time, she believed herself the only one experiencing the pervasive, insistent glumness. She wasn’t alone. And while she never wished the feeling on anyone, it felt a relief knowing she hadn’t been alone.

John’s lips pursed. “Anything out of place happen before you started noticing this?”

“Lindy switched caterers,” Cordy laughed, nudging Donna’s side with her elbow. Donna mustered up a smile, albeit probably not a particularly convincing one. She’d never known the original one, after all. “The property company repaired our roofing.”

“And put the new statue up,” Bridgettete said.

“New statue?” John glommed onto her words with the excitement of a child being presented with a shiny new toy.

“Yes. This building still has most of the original fixtures, and we lost the original lion statue from the roof a few years back when the wall beneath it eroded. We finally got the funds together this past March to replace it.”

“Fascinating,” John said. He hopped up. “Well, thanks for the chat, ladies. I’ll go see if I can’t liberate another plate from the party.”

They watched him disappear out the door with the same conviction as a minor whirlwind.

“I need to hire him for my next party,” Bridgettete stated.

The rest of the ladies laughed, only Donna glaring at the door, narrow-eyed. She intended to figure out what the skinny weirdo was up to, one way or another.

* * *

John found himself particularly relieved to discover he needn’t scale the trellis to get up to the building’s roof. Not that he would’ve _minded_ per se; always up for a good scaling, him. But it happened to be the sort of thing to draw attention, and there were still a hundred people milling about on the ground floor thanks to Lindy’s party.

The emergency stairs went all the way up, and he sonicced the lock and propped the door open when he reached the roof. The lion statue in question sat quite close to the roof’s edge, a grim thing heralding back to the days when humans apparently believed lions resembled sheep with teeth. He gave it a once-over with his sonic and found…

Nothing. For all intents and purposes, just one enormous copper lion statue. How terribly disappointing.

John refused (and failed) to pout over it. 

“You’ll find it’s completely normal,” a voice said, behind him. He turned, relatively surprised to see Gareth lingering next to the door. “Only a great ugly statue. Bit obvious if you ask me.”

“You… are not Lindy.” He’d been expecting Lindy. Then again, if she’d shown up it’d probably be a bit too on the nose. 

John pointed his sonic Gareth’s way for a quick once-over. The results came back—surprisingly!—human, albeit not one from this time period. With his particular brand of genome sequencing, John guessed Gareth came from somewhere in and around the Thirty-Aughts. Around the time when humanity started to show latent psychic abilities. The same sort of latent psychic abilities one might use to influence the emotions of an entire city block’s worth of people when combined with a psychic magnifier. 

A psychic magnifier like a giant copper statue, for example. Normal, hmm? Probably, yeah, but useful in its normalcy. 

“You’re sucking up positive emotions, then? Using them to buoy up yourself?”

“Do you at all understand what it is to truly starve? To be utterly desperate for the smallest amount of sustenance? Enough you put your own self-interest above those of all others? I came to this time period because it’s fertile and I can finally ease this terrible hunger what’s carved me up inside my whole life.” The bloke’s arm rose to point a pistol at John’s head.

“Sorry, can’t let this keep happening,” John told him, ignoring the gun.

Gareth sneered. “How do you intend to stop me?” 

“Second, I’m going to use my sonic screwdriver to warp the statue enough to make it completely useless to you. Then I’ll use the vortex manipulator on your wrist to send you on a one-way trip back to your point of origin. First, though, she’s going to knock you out.”

“Who—” Gareth turned in time for Donna to bring a broken wall sconce down on his temple, sending him spiraling to the ground, unconscious.

“In what universe do you just assume a woman’s going to knock a bloke out for you?!” Donna demanded, stepping over the slumped body. Amazing Donna. _His_ Donna. Who’d bludgeoned a man to unconsciousness without a second thought. Actually, he couldn’t be too certain as to how many thoughts she’d had, and she’d done it anyway! Splendid!

“Both the ones I’ve been in,” John chuckled. 

He turned back to the statue, using his screwdriver to find the precise resonance in order to render it psychically mute. 

He turned to Donna after he finished, only to see her fixing his sonic with deep consideration.

“I know what that thing is,” she stated.

“Do you really?” John asked, throwing it up and catching it in the other hand. He hopped down from the statue’s side and crossed to her. Donna remained still. Not so much as a twitch at his approach. He decided to take it as a good sign.

John lifted Gareth’s arm and fiddled with the vortex manipulator. 

“And I know what _that_ thing is,” Donna continued. 

A one-way trip, and he’d be stuck back where he’d come from. A small cruelty, considering all he’d said about his hunger. John still couldn’t let this type of insidious psychic vampirism continue unabated.

He tweaked the coordinates to land him in a particularly good psychic care clinic. Hopefully they’d be able to assist. 

“Assist with what?” Donna asked. 

Had John been speaking aloud? “His voracious vampiric vices.”

“Could you focus less on being clever and more on actually explaining what you’re doing? Because I feel better than I have in six months, and it makes zero sense to me.” 

He finished with the settings and tapped the device, sending their would-be vampire careening back through time and space. Lindy would be severely displeased by the loss of her caterer, he imagined. From what Bridgettete said, however, there existed a good chance she’d deal with it with more decorum than she’d been conducting herself lately.

“Everyone’s going to feel better now,” John informed her.

“In that case then, stringbean, you’re going to tell me _how_ I know what those things are,” she demanded, crossing her arms. Her eyes narrowed. “If a woman who’d already knocked a bloke out with a broken light fixture, were asking _me_ questions, I’d bloody well answer them!”

John grinned. “Fancy a cuppa?” 

Donna’s lips pursed, but after a moment she sighed and dropped the light cover to the ground. “I’m sticking with wine.”

He trailed after her down the stairs to the third floor and then up the corridor to the last door on the right. Donna decorated her flat in a muted impersonation of her taste; no doubt now the statue and the psychic vampire were both out of the equation she’d get ‘round to dressing it up to her standards. The walls could definitely use more purple. 

Donna grabbed a half-full bottle of white wine out of her refrigerator and dropped down onto a plush white couch, fixing him with the whole of her attention.

“So, then? What is this?” He tossed his sonic her way.

She caught it easily. “Sonic screwdriver. Multipurpose tool originally designed by Gallifreyan engineers. This one’s been fussed about with and cobbled together from… what is that? Stenza technology?”

“Maganafrillian, actually. I think they’re still single-cell organisms in this universe. I should look into it. They make the most amazing sorbet. But the _Stenza_ , yeah, they’d have the parts needed to build one, and then probably you’d be able to shore it up with some decent steel...”

“The Maganafrillians should consider whether or not they really want to rely on a palladium-nickel alloy as a conducting agent,” Donna muttered to herself. She blinked, wide-eyed. “I know these things.”

“You do!”

“ _How?_ ”

“What if I said you’d spent a pretty significant part of your life traveling through time and space with a crazy alien who forced you to forget everything because your brain came close to imploding in on itself when you inadvertently became involved in a biological metacrisis event resulting in you absorbing the entirety of his knowledge without having the mental capacity to process it?”

“You’d best hope you weren’t the crazy alien in question.”

“I can tell you with all honesty no one consulted me on that particular decision, no.” John wiggled his fingers towards his temples. “I can help undo it. The mental block might be failing anyway, if you can whip out information about the conductive quality of palladium-nickel alloys.” He fiddled with his sonic a moment. “Out of curiosity, what would you have used?”

“Can we _please_ focus on fixing whatever’s the matter with my brain first?”

“Right, right, right.” He tapped his fingers on his knee. “Probably easiest if you let me—” He reached for her temples. Before he could press his skin to hers, Donna grabbed his hands.

“A platinum-iridium alloy would stabilize the quality of transmission,” she said.

John chuckled “Donna Noble, you are a star.” He finally pressed his fingertips to her temples and slid into her head.

As suspected, the Doctor shoved all her knowledge of her time with him behind an impressive mental block strong enough to keep the majority of it locked away. A few odds and ends had slipped through cracks in the metaphorical barrier, despite the impressive construction. It would’ve held indefinitely, in all probability, though Donna would’ve eventually ended up being a cracker at certain, specific sorts of trivia. And while no real danger presented itself in leaving it there, besides the implicit threat of her deciding to take a swing at him, the fact remained _he wanted Donna back._ And the Doctor did, too, despite his credo of never looking back. No matter; John and Rose could look back on his behalf whenever he needed. 

He mentally braced Donna to open the door, and prepared them both for the forthcoming resurgence of DoctorDonna. Once they’d gotten it all out in the open, they could start sorting through the debris.

 _The Doctor_ , Donna gasped as memories of him raced all back to her at once. Her own idiotic Martian, restored to her despite all obstacles. 

Reorganizing Donna’s brain required far less time than John’s had; she savagely decided what to part with in great swaths instead of picking through things piecemeal. Centuries of memories and mental knick-knacks he’d spent time individually sorting, Donna swept into a rubbish bin to set out on the curb. In the end, she kept what she dubbed ‘the important bits’: her memories of the Doctor, and their lives together. And one or two little odds and ends she could lord over them all.

Halfway through, as Donna ruthlessly culled her understanding of multipartisan Gallifreyan diplomatic standards, a twinge at John’s temples foreshadowed a mighty migraine. It quickly escalated, white-hot pain stabbing into his fragile grey matter.

 _Idiot!_ Donna’s brain screamed when she noticed. _What’ve you done?!_

 _Worth it,_ John informed her. An all-consuming flame tore at his brain, threatening to destroy each cell in its path. Much longer and he’d end up on a diet of pablum and classical mechanics. And he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, because Donna _deserved_ to understand how bloody important she was to him, the Doctor and all the universe because she’d earned the right to know.

 _Not bloody likely_. Donna shuffled through some more of her memories. _Am I understanding this right? This could_ kill _you?_

Although John tried to shy away from confirming it, they were connected now, and Donna picked up on everything before he whisked it away under the metaphorical rug. She silently screamed obscenities at him even as she began the laborious process of putting things to rights, leaving her own mental landscaping left half-finished as she turned things around and dove into his mind. 

_Why’m I always cleaning up your messes?_

Before his brain could stutter out and dribble from his orifices, Donna found his connection to Rose and used it as an anchor to reweave the disintegrating threads of his mind. Rose, drawn into the process, panicked when she realized what he’d done, and only reluctantly accepted Donna’s reassurances. John suspected a thorough lecture waited on the horizon when she and the Doctor returned for him. 

His flayed brain lay open for Donna to shore it up with better mental shields than he could’ve imagined on his own. She built them with precision and a Time Lord’s understanding of psychic defense. For a few long moments they were the same person. JohnDoctorDonna, tangled up together and inseparable. 

_You dirty bird_ , she said fondly when she caught a glimpse of his feelings for Rose and the Doctor. 

_I didn’t need to see those things about Shaun either_ , John snapped back at her, trying to shove his (scared, half-formed and uncertain) affections behind a mental firewall. He enjoyed only marginal success before she took pity on him and helped with untangling back to individuality. 

_Oh, puh-lease. You love it. I’ve seen_ exactly _everything. Now help me before we end up stuck together permanently._

Together, they remoulded John’s brain to rights and finished clearing out her own. Instead of the labourious twelve-hour process he’d experienced when Rose helped him, John and Donna took less than an hour once they’d stumbled upon a mutual groove. When she finally blinked her eyes open, she leveled a brilliant smile his way.

* * *

When they blinked back to normalcy on her couch, John's fingertips still resting gently on her temples, Donna couldn't help thinking it a far cry better than the last time a spaceman with John’s face had touched her. She was going to give the Doctor such a molly whop, he'd feel it through his next _six_ regenerations.

“I am going to absolutely clobber the idiot,” she told John.

John grinned wide enough she feared his face might split. And here, Donna’s eyes heated with tears. How utterly mortifying. She pulled away from John and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, standing and shaking her head.

"Donna?" John whispered, sounding lost.

"Shut it," she growled. He shut it. Good lad. More sense than his progenitor, anyway, who never owned the brains God'd given a teaspoon. "Where is he?"

"Off in the TARDIS with Rose," John replied. "It's... been a while for him, Donna."

"You saying he's forgotten me?"

John mustered up a smile. "He could never."

Before Donna could reply, the door to the flat opened and Shaun stepped inside, already mid-sentence. Funny how she'd found it endearing, his babbling. She'd failed to understand exactly why before now. "...the day I've had, love, I swear. If half the arseholes in charge at the centre weren't entirely illiterate, I'd..." He paused, both speaking and moving, as he rounded the corner and spotted John sitting on the chesterfield. "Oh, 'llo. Sorry. Didn't realize we’d company over."

"He's not company, he's family," Donna corrected automatically. John’s ensuing grin could’ve lit up a full city block. "This is John, one of my best mates."

"John," Shaun repeated. He blinked. "Have... you told me about John?"

It would be so easy to lie about it and tell him, yes, Donna _had_ mentioned John a half-dozen times. There were colanders more reliable than Shaun’s memory, and had she any shame at all she’d quail to admit how often she'd taken advantage of it to get her way. 

She and John exchanged A Look. 

"No," she said, at length. "He's... he was gone forever. I couldn't talk about it." Literally. 

Shaun seemed relieved and then horrified to have been relieved. God, she loved this ridiculous man.

"The two of us are going to catch up, if you want to nip down to the pub," she suggested.

"You don't mind?" Shaun asked, eyes lighting up. Relieved to be let off the hook for visiting Lindy, no doubt. Donna would have to check in on her; make sure she wasn't too muddled, what with having been the main feeding grounds for a psychic vampire from the future and all.

"Off with you," Donna ordered, grinning. "Be home by midnight, if you don't mind.”

“‘Course. I can’t sleep unless I’m next to you."

Shaun darted in and laid one on her. Donna took the opportunity to slip him some tongue, goose his bum, and then sent him on his way.

John was knelt on the couch, watching them from over the back, delighted as Donna saw Shaun out the door.

"You're adorable," he informed her.

"You're about to get a smack," Donna warned. She crossed the room and loomed over the sofa. "Now, let's go and see about the Doctor. I have a word or two for him."

* * *

Reaching out to Rose and getting her to bring the Doctor back took only moments. The familiar sound of the TARDIS’ materialization sequence filled the air, and Donna grabbed John's hand, squeezing tight.

"What if he makes me forget again?" she asked, the usual bluster drained out of her. John wasn't surprised to hear the quiver in her voice now she was faced with the Time Lord in person once more.

"He did it because he loved you, and he wanted you to live," John assured her. "If he'd believed there to be any other way..."

Unmollified and standing tall, Donna waited as the TARDIS settled into existence before them. The door opened only a moment later and Rose stepped out first. She briefly pinned John with a glare suggesting there was a forthcoming Talk, before throwing her arms around Donna after a cursory hello.

"You look brilliant," Rose said.

"I am brilliant," Donna replied, absently, watching as the Doctor emerged from the TARDIS. Rose must not have warned him; he stared between the three of them, cornobbled.

"Donna," he finally breathed.

The bluster returned full force. "You horrible old codger, you try that one more time..."

She didn't get much further before the Doctor folded his arms around her. Despite increasingly hollow protestations about physical affection, he must’ve realized how desperately Donna needed a hug. They held each other in tender silence, Rose and John ironically forgotten.

"Now, then, I have the time for a quick nip about and make sure the galaxy is still in order..." Donna trailed off, wandering into the TARDIS and shouting back, “Who’s idea was it to redecorate?” 

Rose glanced between John and the Doctor and shook her head. She followed Donna, brushing close enough to the Doctor to nip onto her toes and peck his cheek.

"I never want to forget you, either," she told him. She took the Doctor's hand, squeezed tight, and then made her way inside.

Unaccountably nervous, John shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. "All's well that ends well isn't it? Good thing, too, me showing up. A psychic vampire marked this as prime feeding ground. Doesn’t do to have such things running ripshod about London.” The Doctor’s face remained a stoic mask, and John soldiered on. “Got myself into a spot of trouble dealing with it, but Donna saved the day. As usual. Could've been a nightmare if she hadn't smashed him upside the head. And Donna practically remembered on her own, you know—" He finally stuttered to a halt. The Doctor’s entire focus remained fixed on the ground in a hard stare.

"You realize you might have died." The Doctor finally met John’s eyes. John expected the fury brewing in their depths, not the fear behind it. 

John flailed helplessly. "Worth it, wasn't it? _Donna_ is worth it."

“As relieved as I am to have Donna returned to us, I do not believe her memories of me are worth your life, John."

A little choked, John tried for a dismissive shrug and likely failed miserably. "It wasn’t ever only about you."

The Doctor sighed, then reached out to clasp John's arm. "Never again."

"Unless you've gone and wiped all Sarah Jane’s memories..."

" _Never. Again._ "

The raw tone rocked John back on his heels. He placed his hand over the Doctor's on his arm. "Of all the people in the universe, you're one of the few truly worth remembering."

The Doctor hesitantly placed a hand atop of John’s. He trembled, which John couldn’t process without wanting to cross a boundary they’d never considered.

"Are you two quite done?" Donna interrupted from inside. They both dropped their hands. "Because I’m having one hell of a year, let me say, and I am in desperate need of r-and-r. Preferably with decent peaceful and quiet, somewhere I can relax with a drink and let myself enjoy being pampered—"

The Doctor and John both whipped around as one and shouted, together, "NO SPAS!"


	10. The Delegation

"Miss Donna!" Ae'likien called. They charged into Donna's waiting arms, nearly bowling them both into the ozone-scented reeds. "Prezreiklen chose us! _Us_!" 

"Of course he did, ya plonker! As though he'd choose anyone else," crowed Donna, accepting their enthusiastic embrace. 

All fifty family groups of the The Olinivian Delegation had congregated at sunrise, coming together to expand and exchange members, growing the community in ways only possible through a combination of spontaneous and arranged matches. Countless members comprised the Delegation, permanently inhabiting ships instead of homeworlds. The families met twice a year for “genetic exchanges.” The excitement hanging in the air had been palpable since Donna, the Doctor, John and Rose had touched down minutes before sunrise. 

They'd settled into the celebrations with ease, Donna and John immediately gravitating to Ae'likien and their family, a small bundle of three spouses and six children looking to add another parent to the mix. The entire time their clan fixated on convincing Prezeiklen as a potential partner, a male-presenting adult courted by countless families because of his bravery and intense cerulean eyes.

Ae'likien fretted over their family's eligibility the entire festival. No matter how successful, loving, and eager, the possibility existed Prezreiklen would choose someone else. A family with more wealth and connections, able to advance his clan's claims within the Delegation. Now here they were, bouncing in Donna’s arms, the galaxy set to rights once more.

Despite everything, love once again conquered all. 

"I told you there wasn’t anything to worry about," Donna reminded them smugly, grinning so wide her cheeks ached. 

Over their shoulder Donna watched Prezreiklen embrace two of his new spouses, only occasionally casting longing looks Ae'likien's way. Since they'd arrived, Prezreiklen's family had been eager to make the best possible match. What a relief to know that the match had been one of mutual affection and respect instead of fortune. 

"I feel your friends will soon find the same happiness," Ae'likien whispered into Donna's ear, their sly gaze fixed on where John, Rose and the Doctor had settled themselves in with the rest of the Trenissius Clan, sharing the traditional liqueurs to celebrate a successful match. John’s typical wild gesticulating invited the Doctor's broad grin in response, Rose leaning cheerfully into his side. 

Donna blinked. "No. What? _No_ ," she protested.

Ae'likien grinned, coy. "I can tell. I know these things." As though they'd never doubted their proposal would be accepted out of all the others and hadn’t spent most of the proceedings impotently fretting. 

Donna turned a sceptical eye towards her friends. She couldn’t travel with them full time anymore; much too busy, what with putting her life back together now she'd crawled out from under the oppressive thumb of the alien who'd been intent on sucking away all her happiness. Shaun had been bemused by the sudden influx of 'very-close-friends-of-whom-he'd-never-met-quite-busy-overseas-open-a-new-bottle-there's-a-love' in her life, and it made her adore him all the more. Eventually, she'd drag him aboard the TARDIS and show him off to the galaxy, but for now she selfishly wanted a little more time with it first. 

And yet, for all she'd taken to sneaking aboard the TARDIS whenever she could, she hadn't paid the other occupants any more attention than she'd given to the ridiculous alien with whom she traveled. 

Ae'likien's words made her reconsider initial impressions. 

She didn't know the Doctor could ever desire Rose and John in a way humans might comprehend. Of course, it made her mildly nauseous to think of him ever wanting _anyone_. And yet now she caught herself wondering, even as she reluctantly admitted to herself that Rose and John were amongst the least objectionable of the Doctor’s potential partners.

Looking at them, Rose's head thrown back with laughter while John's hand rested casually on her waist, the Doctor hovering close to both of them and gifting them with a warm smile only uncharacteristic if you didn't know him the way Donna did.

And even worse… she doubted he even understood it himself.

Oh, _Lord_ , how terrible.


	11. Old Friends, New Nightmares

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for minor violence!

Ryellium IX boasted the singularly most impressive museum in the surrounding galaxy. A number of factors elevated it from other institutions of its kind: first and most obvious its sheer enormity. Bigger than any other museum in the local habitable galaxy, it rivaled several Earth countries in terms of square footage. Not the small ones, either. Secondly, the amazing collection. The curators made a point of visiting planets on the verge of destruction and rescuing (stealing) anything they could put their hands on. In many ways, they were responsible for the only reliable archaeological record of more than a thousand dead plants, and over a million extinct species. Thirdly, they regularly broadcasted virtual tours of their exhibits for those unable to travel. All in the name of promoting knowledge.

The Doctor and John were dedicated watchers, despite the supposed ability to pop in and out of the museum at any time. And while she appreciated the cultural significance, Rose couldn’t help but think their enthusiasm for the tours helped conveniently overlook her attempts to catch up on _Midsomer Murders_. 

She’d only just settled down one evening to enjoy an episode when they both materialized from the depths of the TARDIS, crowing about a new tour. 

“The best one yet!” the Doctor insisted.

“An entire three hour journey through the intricacies of pre-modern Norillian imperial deification!” John exclaimed.

Rose resigned herself to saving the spectacle of weaponized cheese for later.

She could admit the impressive scope of the collection. The Norillian artesans dedicated themselves to careful tapestry work; the narrator examined the timelines at length, and showed off some pieces which had taken over a century to complete.

They’d barely started in a survey of the Eighth Dynasty when the Doctor shot up out of his seat, knocking Rose’s popcorn flying as his knee jostled her elbow.

“What?” John demanded as the Doctor scrambled for the remote.

The Doctor rolled back the tour to the sweeping shot across a brilliantly-woven tapestry, and froze the screen as soon as he could get a good look at it.

“There!” he said, pointing. “That! There!”

The brilliant detailed weaving surpassed any Earth technology, to the best of her knowledge. The artist managed perfect photorealism of the last emperor and empress of the civilization, which imploded in on itself in a scarily Calligulan fashion, though the narrator coached it in a much less provincial fashion. The rulers forced the people to treat them as gods, as evidenced in the careful attention to detail on the tapestry created by a literally starving artist. The broad cross-section of lifeforms on the planet were still in recovery centuries after being completely devastated by the ruling class. The joint ruler scoured each natural resource to depletion, and the native population scattered to disparate populations rather than live centrally in a nearly-apocalyptic wasteland. 

The god-emperor, a ginger with unforgiving eyes and cleaver-hard cheekbones, bedecked himself in gold and held aloft a sceptre topped with a grapefruit-sized crystal. The goddess-empress smirked directly at them from the tapestry. Rose couldn’t imagine her face without a smirk; her sharp bone structure suited smug superiority.

“Missy,” the Doctor said.

“Who?” John asked.

“The Master.”

“What?” John’s face contorted in shock. “He—she’s—What? _How?_ ”

“Long story.” The Doctor glowered at the screen. “ _Empress_. And of course she decimated an entire planet.” The Doctor shook his head and flapped his hand. “I left her on Skaro without hope of escaping. How did…” He paused. “I don’t know how I’m even surprised any longer.” 

“Must’ve been quite the shock for him after he married her,” John murmured. He leaned forward in his seat. “There’s something familiar about the crystal.”

Rose flipped through the information on the tablet the TARDIS helpfully provided. She read aloud, “According to the viewer’s guide, it’s ‘of unknown origin and made of unidentifiable material, experts believed the artifact came to Norillius from offworld, and it quickly became a symbol of rulership specific to the reign of Emperor Annatar and Empress Bathory.’ Really, ‘Empress Bathory?’ ‘This item is currently housed in our Norillium exhibit, and ongoing studies continue attempts to determine its origins.’”

“We should go check it out,” John suggested, leaning over Rose’s shoulder to peer at her screen.

“Mightn’t be a bad idea. Especially if she brought it along.” The Doctor made his way to the door, followed closely by John. “I’ll fetch the masks!”

Rose took a last moment to regard the screen, still displaying Missy in all her deific glory. John insisted on keeping his memories about the Master; his feelings about the fallen Time Lord complicated beyond articulation. Even as human, he’d mourned the Master for decades after his death. Now Rose could finally discover why.

John had been hard at work updating their respective screwdrivers thanks to feedback from Donna, and they’d been undergoing fabrication the past day and a half. It felt practically naked to go without, but the Doctor and John seemed incapable of waiting another second before diving into the deep end, and she couldn’t make them wait.

The Doctor and John were both busy at the console when she joined them in the control room.

“The exhibits rotate,” the Doctor said absently as he fiddled with the time rotor. “If we land at the right time, we should be able to find it in one of their back rooms and get a decent peek up close.”

“Here,” John said, hanging Rose a simple black colombina mask. She blinked at it and then turned questioning eyes towards him. “The museum requires everyone to wear masks to avoid detracting from the exhibits.” He donned his own and grinned behind it, wagging his eyebrows over the lacy woven top. “What do you think?” 

“Very dashing,” she laughed. It brought to mind a Venetian masquerade, and she couldn’t help wondering how such decoration prevented distraction. She pulled on her own, obscuring her face from her nose to the top of her forehead. “We have to wear these the entire time?” 

“Unless we want to be kicked out,” the Doctor nodded. His mask’s broad swatch of structured cloth concealed the majority of his face, and if she hadn’t been such a careful (and somewhat guilty) study of his mouth she wouldn’t have recognized him beneath the carefully-structured . 

The TARDIS wheezed as it set down, and the three of them headed out into the museum. As promised, they’d materialized in one of the cavernous back rooms, filled wall-to-wall with shelves crowded with boxes and containers, all carefully marked and dated.

A wide-eyed museum employee stared at them as they stepped out of the TARDIS. An ID badge hanging from a lanyard about her neck identified her as an assistant curator, and she hastily shoved a pair of specs up over her own green mask as she peered at them with a wide gaze showing off the dual indigo pupils in each eye.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, we’re here to examine the artifacts from Norillius,” John said, whipping out his psychic paper.

The woman barely glanced at it. “Wonderful! Follow me. You’ve ended up on the wrong end of our archive, I’m afraid.”

They followed after her, John and the Doctor in a constant, shared state of distraction whenever they passed anything even remotely interesting. Magpies, they were. Constantly distracted by shiny.

Rose fell into step with the worker and introduced herself.

“Pallas Earnshaw,” came the reply. The woman half-crushed Rose’s hand in her an overly firm shake, and she smiled like a ray of sunshine. “My specialty is in pre-Probuscan artifacts from the Trafallan region, and I’ve been assisting with sorting the Norillian artifacts for the past few weeks due to the ontological similarities. I actually suggested we create a virtual tour for it, a few months ago. It became one of our most popular viewing experiences."

"Yes, terribly good job. Part of why we're here, really," John said with an excited bounce.

“I’m glad it grabbed your attention, especially if you’re able to help us identify the artifact.” 

At length, they made it to the right area. Wall-to-wall shelving filled with boxes crowded every corner, all of them marked with carefully-printed notes. Pallas didn’t waste a moment searching for the right box, zeroing in on a short white container the second they stepped into the room. 

“Here.” She ferried it to the long table pushed up against the far wall, a half-dozen lights all aimed at the same spot. She carefully removed the lid and stood back to show off the contents. 

While John accurately estimated the crystal’s size from the tapestry, the picture failed to capture its sheer brilliance. The spherical rose cut stone practically disappeared from view when Rose tilted her head at certain angles, though picking out the individual planes would’ve been next to impossible without the delicate green pillow upon which it rested. 

“Beautiful,” she breathed. 

“Isn’t it?” Pallas whispered, her face twisting up as John and the Doctor crept in close to examine it.

“It’s very familiar,” John said. He pulled out his glasses and shoved them atop his mask before bending over to peer at it. 

Rose turned her attention to the other unshelved artifacts in the room; large stonework statues similarly detailed to the tapestry. None of them depicted Missy. 

“Was anything found along with it?” the Doctor demanded. 

“No. This item came into our collection unexpectedly,” Pallas told him. 

John hummed. “It doesn’t look—” 

The room went abruptly silent. Rose frowned and turned, eyes widening when she realized that both John and then Doctor had vanished.

"Where did they go?" she demanded.

Pallas, pale and shaking, quivered in place and offering no answer or explanation. Rose stared her down until she ducked her head, and then crossed the room to the table where they'd been investigating the crystal. Unlike its earlier translucency, the crystal had clouded through with thick swirling mist. Rose reached for it, only to be interrupted by a drawling voice from the doorway.

"Wouldn't, if I were you."

Rose whipped around, her blood running cold. An elegantly dressed woman loitered in the doorway, roughly Rose's height before her impressive spiked heels and high coiffure. The obligatory mask hiding most of her face did nothing to disguise her. Rose knew her from the tapestry and the self-satisfied curl of her mouth.

“Missy,” she breathed. 

The Time Lady tilted her chin. "Hate to have an extra passenger if I can help it. Though two for the price of one is promising. I did enjoy the soulful eyes on him when he was a brunette. Always wonderfully close to crying."

She straightened from her insouciant slouch and crossed the room, reaching into an inner pocket of her blazer to retrieve an elaborately embroidered handkerchief. She nudged Rose aside and carefully picked it up, agonizingly precise in her movements as she folded the delicate cloth around it. "There we are."

"Umm, Mistress, I—" Pallas began.

Without even glancing over her shoulder, Missy withdrew a screwdriver from her pocket in one fluid movement and levelled it at Pallas, disintegrating her. She offered Rose a deceptively sweet smile.

How many times did John wake shouting over nightmares of being tortured? Or the casual violence of Jack’s rotational murders? The blood rushed from her face, and Rose took an unsteady breath. This person took over the Earth and killed billions. And regardless of her sins, both John and the Doctor jumped at the chance to investigate the merest clue to her whereabouts. Rose couldn’t understand it.

Satisfied by whatever she saw in Rose’s face, Missy grinned expansively, for all the world well pleased with herself. "Roooooose Tyler. Such an honour."

Rose snorted in disbelief. "How do you know about me?"

"Himself, who else? I heard all about you, the year I spent playing with him."

_Liar_. Rose scowled viciously. "He never said a word about me."

"Oh, he didn't _say_ anything. He did think about you, though. Constantly. 'Oh, I'm so relieved Rose isn't heeeere. Thank Rassilon he can't get his hands on Roooooose. I never believed I’d be glad she's stuck where she iiiiiiis.' Boring. Repetitive. I _hated_ it. I should've been commanding the entirety of his attention. Good job, now, I've got an opportunity to make you pay for every moment he wasted on you when he should have been focused on me."

Aching for her Torchwood sidearm, Rose's gaze whipped across her immediate surroundings looking for anything resembling a weapon. A carved piece of bone caught her eye; the perfect size and shape to bludgeon someone. If she moved quickly, she could get it in her hands and deliver one hell of a good walloping before Missy could do more than blink.

"I wouldn't," Missy said. She remained fixed in place, not giving a single inch, even with her eyes.

"Why not?" Rose demanded, fingers twitching as she considered the best way to launch herself towards her would-be cludgeon.

"Because I have a laser screwdriver," Missy reminded her. "And I'll use it.”

“He’d never forgive you,” Rose said with confidence. 

“I’ve never sought his forgiveness.” She shook the hanky-wrapped crystal, her face fixed in a cold mask of determination.. “I will, without more than a moment's hesitation, destroy it unless you let me leave here unharassed."

" _Why?_ After going to all this trouble to catch him?" No doubt she used Pallas to organize the necessities of drawing the Doctor here. Destroying him while she now enjoyed the upper hand made no sense. 

"The Doctor and I have unfinished business. We’ve been interrupted far too many times to count, and I've finally got him in a place where we can hash it all out like grown ups. And I'll not have you interrupting mummy and daddy while we talk."

Rose grit her teeth. "If you honestly want to talk to him, you won't destroy that thing."

"You're underestimating the lengths I'll go to in order to have his complete attention."

"Then why not kill me?"

"Oh, don’t mistake me: nothing would make me happier. But I've already tested my luck trying to kill his last little piece of fluff. I can't think what he'd do if I disintegrated his 'precious girl.'" Her face twisted up in disgust. "Entertaining as it is to imagine, it would distract from the conversation. Possibly permanently. So you stay here, and if you're well behaved, I'll return the spare." She tucked the crystal into her pocket. "Now, wherever did you park? The old girl and I are going to scoot off."

Before Rose could answer, blaring claxons sounded overhead. The shrill shriek pounded into her head, threatening to rupture her eardrums, and Rose clapped her hands over her ears. Missy grimaced, superior senses working in Rose's favour, and Rose jumped towards the piece of bone. She grabbed it up and swung about to face Missy a heartbeat later, only to find Missy’s screwdriver pressed up against the crystal. Rose froze, the heavy bone clenched tightly in her hand, her arm twitching with the effort it took to keep herself from clubbing Missy upside the head with it. Could she do it? Did she have a chance of hitting quick enough, hard enough, to put Missy down?

Before she could make up her mind about whether or not to take the risk, the door to the room slammed open and a woman tore her way inside, stumbling to a halt when she spotted the two of them in their unsure standoff. She’d complemented her own mask with a dark scarf covering her hair, reminding Rose of nothing more than the Dread Pirate Roberts. Her outfit, functionally resplendent with innumerable pockets and compartments, did nothing to dissuade the opinion.

"What?" she gasped.

"You've happened upon a hostage situation," Missy said, maintaining strict eye contact with Rose, daring her to twitch. "There's the door. Use it." 

If Missy so much as breathed in the newcomer's direction, it would give Rose the chance to disarm her. Their interloper, all riotous energy and inadvertently good timing, was her only chance of saving John and the Doctor.

"The museum is in lockdown," the woman stated. "No one is getting in or out."

The lines about Missy's mouth went taut. "I’ll make do."

"You'll also have to make do with the security detail heading this way, I'm afraid." The woman's deep and cultured voice, full of feigned amusement and deceptive ambivalence, belied how her eyes flicked back and forth between Missy and Rose.

"Ah. Well. I suppose I shouldn't have dispatched of my minion quite as quickly." Missy shrugged. "Next time. You," she continued pinning the newcomer with an icy sneer, "back over towards the blonde." She gestured with her screwdriver, which the woman frowned at.

"Am I supposed to be scared?"

"If you have any inclination towards self-preservation. I _need_ to keep the blonde alive. You on the other hand..."

Missy moved to take aim, and Rose leapt forward, whipping the bone at Missy's head. She barely managed to dodge it, and fired her screwdriver Rose's way. She jumped, crashing into the woman who'd interrupted them, and both of them slammed into the ground inches away from where Missy's laser hit the floor. The tile beneath them shuddered and caved inwards, sending them both crashing through to the floor below. Rubble rained down upon them, and Rose covered her head in time to protect her temple from a broken piece of tile toppling through the hole in the floor above. Her side ached from where she’d landed on what appeared to be a dinosaur-like model, now crushed into scattered pieces on the floor. She’d narrowly avoided hitting a very prominent jawbone hosting four rows of jagged teeth.

“Delightful woman,” their interloper said, brushing herself off and offering Rose her hand. 

“‘Delightful,’ right,” Rose repeated. She accepted the help to her feet. “Not the first word coming to mind.” She expected Missy to show her face and lord herself over them from the floor above. Nothing. Probably already headed for the TARDIS. Rose trusted the old girl would keep Missy out as long as she could, but if anyone could figure a way past her defenses, it’d be another Time Lord. “Do you work for the museum, then?”

“No, dear, I'm robbing it. Hence the incredibly irritating claxons and my enthusiastic aversion to detection.”

"...robbing it?" Rose repeated. Explained the head covering atop the mask, anyway. The only identifying feature visible were her shallow dimples and thin lips, and even the dimples faded away as her smile fell into a moue of confused distaste. 

"Yes. Of a Hiderian artifact which, to close a particularly problematic looping paradox, I need to return to its rightful owners before the universe collapses in upon itself."

“Sounds like a Tuesday,” Rose murmured.

The woman grinned. “And you? I’ve never been part of a hostage situation without actual hostages.”

"There were hostages, all right. She’s got my husbands trapped inside that crystal."

"Husbands? Plural? Bravo, darling."

“I need to get them back.” And with Missy already possessing the upperhand, Rose doubted she could do it on her own. But Pallas had been working for Missy and nothing suggested the rest of the museum staff weren’t compromised as well. In fact, the woman in front of her seemed to be the only one Rose could say with even a small amount of certainty wasn’t working with Missy.

Cards on the table, then.

“I don’t know who I can trust. She killed one of the museum staff helping her before you arrived, and I’ve no idea how many more of them she has in her pocket,” Rose admitted. “You’re the only one I can say for sure isn’t involved with her.” Assuming Missy hadn’t planned out an elaborate long-con. Then again, the Time Lord reassuringly struck her as the type to avoid needless deception when she could be self-congratulatory instead. “If you help me get them back, I’ll make sure we get you out of here afterwards. Anywhere you want to go.” Rose shrugged. “Cargo intact.” 

The woman’s eyes sparkled. “I do love an offer of travel.” She stuck out her hand. “You have yourself a deal.”

“I’m Rose,” Rose replied, shaking her hand.

“Rose,” she repeated warmly. “You’ll forgive me for not offering my real name right away. Obvious reasons, and all. You may call me Brook.” 

A shout interrupted them. They both looked up to find a small company of security personnel glaring down at them from the hole in the floor. “Let’s go.”

They’d fallen into what appeared to be another storage room, filled wall-to-wall with other dinosaurish models which loomed large around them as Brook navigated them to the door.

“The lockdown remains in place until the stolen item is returned or a more severe emergency supersedes it,” Brook reported. “We’ll only hear the alarms in the backrooms, or at the museum exits. This place gets robbed on the regular, and they try to limit the impact to paying guests. Which happens to work in our favour.” Brook stripped off her coat and draped it over a long-necked beastie, abandoning it without a glance backwards. It showed off impressively muscled arms. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to blend in with the other guests.”

“And Missy won’t be able to leave,” Rose said, ditching her own debris-covered jacket. It left her in a simple vest shirt and trousers. Easy to maneuver in, at least, though the oppressive air conditioning immediately made her skin break out in goosebumps.

Brook nodded and hauled Rose out into an adjoining room, into the middle of a throng of visitors. Unlike the backroom’s overcrowded efficiency, the common area lovingly displayed innumerable paintings, small crowds gathered around in front of them as close as they could manage, examining the artwork. She could see the reasoning behind the masks at last; without anything else to draw the eye, all the focus remained on the collection. 

"If her transport's been compromised, she'll head for the Galbrian exhibit. It could be her only way out of here."

“Where’s the exhibit?” Rose asked.

Before Brook answered, she grabbed Rose’s arm and swung her around to face one of the paintings, pulling her close to her side and wrapping an arm about her waist. Rose focused her gaze on the painting, even as her attention darted across the room, finally locating a small team of approaching security guards.

“Make small talk,” Brook hissed. None of the other tourists around them were standing in silence, save a few lone individuals who were all attracting the exact sort of wrong attention she and Brook were desperate to avoid. The other woman dipped in to whisper in Rose’s ear, her eyes still fixed on the painting. To the casual observer, she might’ve been discussing the brush strokes. “Two husbands, you said. Is polyandry standard in your culture?”

“Not at all,” Rose replied, anxious to avoid drawing attention and all-too-aware of the consequences if they were singled out. “The opposite, actually. We didn't all marry at once. My second wedding, with all three of us, we were sort of tricked into."

Brook’s lips twitched in amusement. "More than one decent marriage originated the same way. If your second husband stuck around without protesting, I can only imagine he’d rather hoped for it." She chuckled.

Rose frowned at her feet. "He's already married." The unasked question plagued her and John since their unconventional wedding took place. They had no idea regarding the Doctor’s wife and her timeline, and the Doctor remained conspicuously silent on the matter. Rose could tell he thought of her whenever he fiddled with his wedding band. She and John were interlopers, though the Doctor never said as much. Before they could figure out if things would ever go any further, they’d need to address it. 

Brook sniffed. "It doesn't mean you can't enjoy each other, as long as all parties are consenting."

"What about his other wife?"

"If he's not concerned, you shouldn't be. With all luck, she'll be perfectly understanding about the whole affair.” Brook barely managed to repress a smirk. “Hell, for all you know, she prefer you."

Rose couldn’t help a bubble laughter from creeping out. It drew the attention of the guards for a scant moment before they glanced away, apparently more interested in the people who weren’t actively drawing attention to themselves.

Once they’d refocused their attention elsewhere, Brook tucked Rose’s hand into the crook of her elbow and steered her from the room and into the next exhibit at a casual saunter.

“What about you?” 

“Oh, I've had five,” Brook said. "And only one of them hasn’t been completely useless. The others were for convenience’s sake. Unfortunately, two of them ultimately ended up being terribly _inconvenient_. Hopefully this next one is more bearable."

"The next one?"

"Wedding's next week. Can't say things are terribly promising."

"You're not even married yet."

"Well, I'm only marrying him to get access to the bloody great diamond stuck in his head."

"How do you plan to get it out?"

Brook smirked. "Spoilers." She pulled Rose out the nearby door. "The Galbranian collection is on the other side of the Twiggit IX exhibit," Brook said, ducking down behind an exhibit as two security guards flew past. "If she's truly thinking she can use their tech to get herself out of here, she'll be exploring the section on technological advances."

"Will it work if the planet's in lockdown?"

"The Galbranian’s never mastered time travel the way the rest of the galaxy did." Brook's lips pursed. "The way certain, aggravatingly advanced sections of the galaxy did, anyway. They never conceived of relying on the Vortex, because they never discovered its existence. Their studies all focused on the concept of quantum inertia to recreate time travel. They employed some sound science for the concept, even if they never did manage on the follow-through."

Brook took out a trowel-shaped sonic tool and aimed it at the grate, catching each screw one at a time as they came loose before they could hit the ground. 

"And she's, what, going to try and finish their research?"

"Impossible. There were far too many missing equations for anyone to piece it together successfully. However," Brook hauled the grate away. "They did manage to cobble together a few odds and ends someone clever could use to bypass the lockdown."

“Is that how you planned to get out?”

Brook grinned and waved her forward without answering. Rose slid through the cold return. While it really only separated one room from the next, it gave them a chance to get out of the security sweep going on. They popped up in the middle of an exhibit devoted to prehistoric family norms in the Attarac system; Rose smiled and waved at a family as they stared at her in shock, even as Brook slithered down the back of the enormous reptile blocking their access to the exit. Rose followed close behind, arriving just in time for Brook to finish jimmying the lock.

"We can take the shortcut through the Latanafis collection," Brook whispered, dodging around the same family. The little girl who'd waved back at Rose beamed when Rose ruffled her lovely golden locks. "Could probably reach the Galbranian exhibit before she gets there."

"Assuming she doesn't take any shortcuts either."

"Good point. I love a pessimist."

Not-quite-running—they couldn't afford to draw attention back to themselves—they weaved through the crowds of tourists squeezed into every inch of the corridor. The Latanafis collection boasted an enormous concentration of paintings; Rose even remembered one or two from the museum’s virtual tours.

Rose spotted the security detail and grabbed Brook's arm. They ducked their heads and did their best to fade into the crowd, gently zigzagging their way through the surrounding bodies until they'd reached the end of the gallery and exited out onto an enormous promenade, lined on both sides with shoppes, restaurants and information kiosks. Spotting a map of the museum—the postcode they were in, anyway—Rose darted in to grab it, and then fell back into step at Brook's side.

"Our fastest path means we go through the Sol-3 gallery," Rose said. She frowned. "Wait, they have a Walkman on display? Why? Did they get to be that culturally significant?"

"It's not always about cultural significance, dear. Museums will display anything they can get their hot little hands on."

"Couldn't they at least have gotten their hands on an iPod?"

Brook cut Rose a sideways glance. "You speak as though you’ve been."

Rose coughed and buried her face in the unfolded brochure. "I’m a big fan of Sol-3." Brook’s mouth twisted doubtfully. 

She wanted to tell Brook the whole truth. And would probably have to, when they made good on her offer to give Brook a ride out. At the moment, she found herself unwilling to offer up any more information. Maybe because Rose found herself hesitant to share the details with a thief. Perhaps due to the niggling feeling in the back of her mind that she’d missed a crucial piece of a larger puzzle and Brook was well shaped to fit it.

As they passed through the concourse, Brook grabbed Rose’s arm and tugged her down a side hallway, through a door marked ‘Personnel Only.’ Rose found odd comfort and familiarity in being dragged about. Even in the way Brook’s hand lingered on her arm after they’d passed into the narrow hallway leading to the security station. 

“Here,” Brook said. A bank of screens displaying the entire museum covered the walls in the otherwise empty office. With a few flicks of her fingers, Brook used the antiquated means of protecting the displays to pull up a stream of Missy without needing to search through the countless screens. 

“The Ophellian collection. What on earth is she doing there?” Brook murmured. 

Missy, in gloriously high definition, came to a stop in front of a group of grotesque statues, trapped behind thick glass. The placard in front of them declared them to be “ephialtes,” though even the excellent resolution in the video couldn’t quite let her see the details in fine print below.

“Oh no,” Brook whispered, watching in horror as Missy withdrew her screwdriver. 

“What?” Rose asked. 

Brook hit a few more buttons, alerting the security teams. “The Ophellians were powerfully psychic. They struggled with their emotional connection to their dreams until any particularly nasty nightmares could physically manifest in the real world. They managed to find a means of capturing them in stone, and with the right resonance..."

Missy aimed her laser screwdriver at the glass. 

The indescribably nightmarish statues suddenly began to move. 

One of the statues—a lumbering beast of eight feet, reminiscent of a minotaur with a ghoulishly decomposed head—smashed through the glass containing them. Three security guards skidded into the room, falling over each other to stop as they scrabbled for purchase on the smooth tile. Another one of the beasts slipped under the legs of the first; a half-formed, emaciated bipedal creature with lidless eyes and scimitars jutting out from its three-fingered hands. It flowed across the floor on all fours, flinging itself on one of the guards and—

"Oh my god," Rose whispered.

"She's got nothing to do with it, dear," Brook said. 

She swiped her hand against the screen and brought up a complicated control panel. A few quick keystrokes and an alarm began blaring overhead, different than the original still blaring away. 

"Will people be able to evacuate if the place is still locked down?"

"Override protocols. This must be her exit strategy." On the screen, behind Brook's mad scramble with the controls, Rose glowered as Missy smirked up at the camera. "The system will automatically begin locking down again as people evacuate. Unfortunately, it leaves a rather generous window for Missy to escape."

"We can't let her leave," Rose gasped, grabbing Brook's arm. "Brook, we can't—"

"Listen, I will do all I can to help save your husbands, but if they're anything like mine they'd both agree their lives aren't worth the lives of all the others in this building." 

Rose's heart flew into her throat as a rush of shame ran from her lungs to her throat. She bit back the automatic denial, promises she hadn’t meant it the way it occurred. But she had, and she needed to own it, to herself if not to the stranger helping her. Of course neither the Doctor or John would ever choose their own lives first. And she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she made the choice for them. 

"Then we need to stop those things," she said. She had _such_ an earful in store for John over his mad dash out the door without waiting for the TARDIS to finish the upgrades to their screwdrivers. A hefty stun baton caught her attention, and she grabbed it up. "And then get Missy."

"Now you're talking," Brook agreed. 

The other two security guards managed to take down one of the ephialtes before they were bowled over by the minotaur. It's massive horn pierced through a guard's stomach, pinning her to a wall, before Brook cut the feed. 

She marched towards the door, Rose falling into step beside her. They passed out of the security hallway and into the concourse, evacuated with surprising speed. Only a few stragglers remained to run towards the nearest exit. Brook and Rose broke into a sprint, heading directly for the Ophellian exhibit. 

"They're still only psychically enhanced stone," Rose decided. 

"You've an idea then?" Brook asked. 

"I will. Give me a minute."

Brook's laugh, though strained, reminded Rose of silver bells on a Christmas morning. "Exactly what my husband might say." 

The words tweaked a formless idea in the back of Rose's mind, settling as a frustratingly out of reach word on the tip of her tongue. Before it could firm itself into a real concept, a distant scream echoed through empty hallways. They whipped around a corner in time for the last remaining security guard to charge past them, a bloody rake of claw marks carved deep into his chest. 

And right behind him, the crushing sound of something enormously heavy following close behind him.

Rose threw out her arm, catching Brook's chest and stopping her in place. The dragging, shuffling steps grew closer, and she pulled Brook behind a display case large enough to shield them from view. They both poked their heads up as the new ephialtes rounded the corner. The mere sight of the creature scored itself into Rose's mind, slipping into the crevices of her sanity and cracking. The geometries of it defied description; the unnatural angles evoking broken bones and torn ligaments sticking up through skin. The stone construction barely slowed its movements; the jerky creep of it across the floor bringing to mind watching movement beneath a strobe light. Its steps were heavy. Its construction vaguely skeletal. And it was hunting them. 

"If Missy used a specific resonance to animate them, can we reverse it? Turn them back into statues?" Rose whispered. 

"Perhaps," Brook said. She drew a trowel from her side, and aimed it at the ephialtes. It hummed, remarkably similar to a sonic screwdriver, and she cursed when nothing happened. "Damn. No luck. My trowel doesn't have a setting for stone." 

"But it's a trowel?!"

"I'm aware of the irony!" Brook smacked the side of it and cursed, then tucked it back away. "Think! What other species were advanced enough to have created psychically charged tech?" 

The ephialtes dragged itself closer, gouging deep lines in the tile with the weight of pulling its massive body along the floor. Its eyes fixed on Rose and it bellowed out a glass-splintering screech. Rose gasped, clapping her hands over her ears. They came away wet with blood, shaking hard enough to splatter droplets across her pants and down to the ground. 

They couldn't hide here. 

Rose jumped to her feet and grabbed Brook's hand, hauling her upwards. She pulled the other woman along, racing down the hallway, away from the ephialtes. The escape felt temporary at best; when Brook's mouth moved, Rose’s ears filled with a sound similar to running water. 

Brook withdrew her trowel again and aimed it at Rose's head. Slowly the sound dwindled away, and Rose could once more hear the alarms blaring overhead. 

"The Souelabrix," she said absently, cupping Rose's cheek and turning her head from side to side. She pulled a handkerchief from her side and brushed it against Rose's ears. "They’ll have the tech we need." 

"Where's the exhibit?" Rose asked. 

"The other side of the Ophellian collection." Brook's face went grim. "We'll have to go 'round the outside of the building, unless we want to try our luck with big and ugly." 

The sound of the ephialtes approaching made the decision easy. "Let's find a window." 

They skidded to a halt inside a small room off the main corridor—an overly cluttered office with a picturesque view of the mountainous geography of Ryellium IX—and as Brook used her trowel to lock the door, Rose picked up the desk chair and heaved it at the window. It bounced uselessly off, and her eyes widened. The ephialtes’ enormous strength would make quick work of the door. If they couldn’t get out…

“There’s a latch on the window, dear!” Brook shouted over her shoulder, over the scraping sound of approach. 

That fixed it; Rose spent entirely too much time around John. 

She threw open the window and checked outside. Metal designed to keep the worst of the planet’s elements at bay sided the building, arranged in a scaly pattern. If they were careful, they could climb the entire distance between the office and wherever they needed to go. It wouldn’t exactly mean hanging from their fingertips, but the distance between the two scales would make it a stretch to hold on. 

“Come on!” Rose shouted. She heaved herself out the window and gripped the hard metal edges outside. How many times had she dared similar feats while working for Torchwood? The entire east wall of the gym offered a dedicated climbing structure, and while she occasionally hated it—her upper body strength needed so much work when she’d first joined up—she’d done her best to conquer it. If she ignored the wind whipping around them, smacking her in the face with sharp slaps of cold air, she could imagine Jake and Mickey calling encouragement from below. 

She inched her way along the metal edge, trying to give Brook enough room as the other woman climbed out the window after her. Hanging from the edge one-handed, she used her trowel to reseal the window, hopefully trapping the ephialtes inside. 

“If I’m right, we need to make it past the next three windows!” Brook called over the ripping wind. 

Rose couldn’t stop herself gaping across the side of the building at the half a mile between her and the target window. A slim lip lined the sides of each scale, barely enough for a handhold, which meant slow-going. And meanwhile those things would be terrorizing anyone left inside. 

No help for it. Rose started to move.

Inch by painful inch, she shuffled along the edge, clinging to the shingles above with her fingertips. A buffet of wind hit her exactly the wrong way and her foot slipped. Heart hammering, she clung to the side of the building, waiting for the surge of adrenaline to become useful, until the initial fear passed and she continued onwards. 

Before they could get more than a few feet, the window they’d closed behind them exploded open as the ephialtes threw itself out of it. It seemed to hang suspended in the air a cartoonishly long moment, before it careened downwards. 

“That’s one way to take care of them, I guess,” Rose called. 

“Assuming the falls does the trick, anyway!” Brook shouted back. 

Psychically enhanced rock, but still only rock. Rose repeated the words over and over in her mind, even while straining to hear the sound of the thing climbing up after them.

They continued their progress across the building. Rose kept her focus on her body, the wall. Tried not to think of Missy finding the TARDIS while they inched their way along the outside of the museum. Would Missy even be able to get into their ship? Would she manage to escape before they even got to the other exhibit? What if Rose got trapped here, without John and the Doctor, unable to chase after Missy? Her biceps clenched, and she began moving faster. 

When she finally reached the first window, Rose fixed her foot on the sill and hauled herself over it, practically jumping the space between it and the next scale. 

Her hand slipped. 

Terror whipped the breath out of her lungs when her fingers tore away from the lip. She flailed and locked her knees. Her toes strained forward to tilt her body back up against the building until she found purchase and clung tight to the thin metal keeping her from tumbling through the air. 

“All right?” Brook yelled. 

“Yeah,” Rose managed to whisper. She coughed and shouted ‘yeah!’ again, praying she could bolster her own confidence. 

When she could finally breathe again she continued inching forward. 

Brook managed far better. She chose to drop down below the window and then haul herself back up afterwards with grace Rose couldn’t help admiring. They exchanged a rueful glance as they continued onwards. 

Finally the fourth window came into view. 

“Can you use this?” Brook called, brandishing her trowel. 

“I’ll try!” Rose replied. 

Brook passed the trowel to her, and Rose focused it on the window. Her mind buzzed with an effect similar to her sonic screwdriver, the trowel ringing with a falsetto mental signature. An odd, echoing electric feeling pulsed down her arm and the window’s latch obligingly clicked open. Rose awkwardly slid the window up, tumbling inside as it gave with a sudden lurch. She landed directly in a pile of half-decomposed food and industrial waste. 

They’d ended up in the refuse pile.

“This is now at the top of my list of things I hate and never want to do again,” Rose muttered when Brook dropped down next to her. She pulled a mucousy length of garbage from her hair and grimaced as she tossed it aside. 

“Is it a terribly long list? Mine could easily fill a book,” Brook agreed. 

“At least.” Rose waded out of the refuse pile and offered Brook a hand up. 

The second their hands touched, a thousand scattered memories flitted through Rose’s mind, none of them her own. If she’d possessed the Doctor’s skill at deciphering grapeshot mental images, or John’s laser precision at identifying the important bits, she might’ve been able to pick out more than a single image of a young man with floppy hair and a broad chin—Brook’s husband, presumably—reaching for her. Rose’s heart welled up with a reflection of Brook’s love, and when their all-too-brief mental connection broke, she couldn’t help smiling despite the embarrassment over the voyeuristic glimpse into Brook’s mind. 

Brook gave her a long, measured look which Rose couldn’t decipher. Eventually, she smiled, more than a bit lost. 

“Come on,” she said. Rose passed her back her trowel. “We’ve got to get them back.” 

Smelling vaguely reminiscent of a walrus' armpit, Rose and Brook waded through the small mountains of garbage, through back to the main corridor. 

"Don't suppose your trowel has a cleanse setting?" Rose asked as they finally shoved through the door. 

"You wouldn't enjoy it. It scours the first layer of skin right off." 

"At this point, I’d take it." 

Brook offered a jaunty laugh and led Rose through the hallways, behind an impressive collection of ceramic sculptures, idly murmuring about their origin under her breath. Rose managed to follow until she started digressing into thermoluminescence, at which point she lost the thread of the decidedly one-sided conversation. Her attention fixed itself on Brook’s profile, and the glimpse she’d gotten of the other woman’s mind. The agonizingly familiarity about the man of whom she’d caught a glimpse staggered her. She’d never seen him before, had she? Only, the depths in his eyes were the same she’d seen innumerable times in the Doctor’s. 

"The Souelabrix exhibit," Brook said, interrupting Rose’s woolgathering. For the best, really. There wasn’t any time for it. "Help me. We need a sort of musical instrument. The Souelabrixi used them as a means of conveying psychic intent. If we find one before the ephialtes get here..."

A harsh scream, like the sound of a broken metal chair being dragged across rough tile, filled the air. 

"Too late," Rose gasped. "What sort of instrument?" Rose searched the closest display case. Mostly arrowheads. She passed to the next one. Also arrowheads. She could give accolades to the museum: they were certainly completionist. 

"They preferred wind instruments!" Brook shouted over her shoulder. "Anything resembling a flute or an ocarina!"

Bollocks. Rose crossed to the next one. More bloody arrowheads! And the next one contained jewelry resembling arrowheads. 

She passed by another display case—still more arrowheads—and almost ignored it, until her gaze caught on tiny holes peppering the side of one of the pieces. She ducked down to check it out through the glass. An arrowhead, yes, but one you could blow into it and to produce sound. 

"Brook!" 

Brook jogged across to her. "That's it!"

"How do we get it out?"

"Needs must, dear," Brook replied. She smashed the butt of her trowel down on the glass case. Carefully fishing the instrument up out of the sea of jagged shards, she brushed away a few loose pieces of glass and brought it to her lips. 

Her breath went right through it, producing no sound. 

"Damn, how does it..." She pursed her lips and tried again. This time, at least, her efforts resulted in a weak hiss. 

Before she could try a third time, the largest of the ephialtes by far appeared in the hall. Equally horrifying as the others of its kind, the thing sported a distended jawbone covered in jagged fangs sticking out at all angles, framed by two enormous tusks hiding the beady eyes deep-set in the beast's bulbous face. A rictus of pustules bulged out from its body, each one covered in small molar-like protrusions, pulsing to a progressive triple-beat rhythm. Its steps fell heavy on the ground as stubby legs forced it forward in slow, plodding footfalls, its attention fixed entirely upon them. 

Brook tried again, cursing when she couldn't manage it. 

"Never played an instrument in school?" 

"Chalk it up to an unconventional childhood education," Brook replied. She pushed it into Rose's hand. "I'm going to distract it. Try to get a sound out of this, and think about our friend here turning back into a statue while you do." 

Brook charged towards it, mindless of Rose’s scream of protest. Producing a gun from her side, she fired three shots at its head, enough to draw its gaze away from Rose, and launched herself behind another one of the display cases. The ephialtes followed her, walking into the case and casually smashing it to a thousand tiny pieces as it lumbered forward. 

Rose pursed her lips and blew into the small opening at the neck. While she’d never paid much attention to music in school, Tony brought home a piccolo during year six. How had he done it? Fold her bottom lip over the mouth, pretend to say 'poo' and breathe... 

A single blast sounded, and the creature halted. Instead of reverting to a statue, however, it bulged and deformed, stretching out and flattening until the majority of its pustules faded away. 

"Try not to damage it! It's still a historically significant artifact!" 

A historically significant artifact _trying to kill them_. Rose gritted her teeth; slapping the one person able to help her fell short of properly expressed gratitude. In the back of her mind, she could practically hear the Doctor scoffing. 

The ephialtes forced Brook to duck into a tight space between two displays, its girth blocking her from escape. It slapped the hutches to either side of her, shattering the glass and warping the frames. While Brook remained completely still in her small hidey-hole, Rose could see the colour drain from her face. She needed to get out of there. Now. 

Rose tried again, focusing on the idea of the ephialtes becoming a statue once more. This time, she managed another sharp note, and moved her fingers across the holes of the instrument, managing to create reasonable recreation of a music note. The ephialtes’ movements slowed, and Rose blew another few notes. The texture of its skin stiffened, and after one more harsh breath through the instrument, it froze entirely. 

Brook ducked down underneath the arms which attempted to grab her and nodded to Rose with approval. "Right, let's go take care of the others."

The ephialtes were not widespread. The persistent beast who’d followed them into the Souelabrix exhibit had been the furthest traveled. They ran across only a handful more on their way back towards the Ophellian exhibit. 

(Fortunately, Rose didn’t need to recreate anything resembling actual music in order to return them to immobile stone.) 

“It’s a very advanced instrument,” Brook offered as they encountered an ephialtes resembling a bedraggled owl with a mouthful of barbed wire. “It picks up on your intention well enough. If you were actually Souelabrixi, you’d be able to do more with it. Control them, perhaps. Could be worth exploring.” She narrowly ducked away from a buffeting wing just in time to avoid having her head lopped off, and Rose blasted another note, managing to freeze it. 

“Another time,” Rose suggested.

Brook sighed regretfully. 

They found Missy in the Ophellian room, her laser screwdriver on the ground a full twenty feet away from her, cornered by the minotaurish ephialtes she'd first awakened. It had backed her into a corner, piercing its horns deeply into the wall to either side of her, trying to trudge forward in an effort to crush her. Cradled in the space between its horns and its head, Missy occupied herself a compact, examining her make up with carefully cultivated disinterest. To all appearances impressively bored by the proceedings considering only the strength of the walls saved her from being ground to paste.

She leveled them both with an unfazed glare when they stepped into the room. The ephialtes issued a bellowing roar yet when it tried to pull away from the wall, it remained stuck in place. 

"Give me the crystal," Rose ordered.

"What, and lose my leverage? Get me out of this first." 

Lips pursed angrily, Brook drew a gun from her side. Missy blinked, regarding the other woman as if a precocious pet had managed a particularly clever trick. She snapped her compact shut.

"I will shoot you in the head," Brook informed her, cold. 

"I’m confident it wouldn’t be received well," Missy said, sounding reluctantly intrigued. 

"My conscience can carry it," Brook promised. 

"It's not your conscience concerning me," Missy stated. Her gaze flickered to Rose. "How would you feel about your new... 'friend' putting a bullet in my brain? Hmm? Think your 'husbands' would be happy with you? Think they'd forgive it?" She drew the crystal from her jacket, passing it back and forth between her hands, the movements fluid and easy. She paused, balancing it on a single fingertip, eyebrow raised. 

Rose desperately wanted to offer up a quippy dismissal. Or say she'd lie. Anything to wipe the smug satisfaction intensifying on Missy’s face the longer Rose stood silent. Time Lords—and Ladies—couldn't regenerate through damage to the brain. If Brook followed through on her threat, Missy would die permanently. And Rose would either have to live with keeping it a secret, or the Doctor being unable to forgive her tacit complicity. More than anything, she knew the Doctor wanted Missy—in any of their regenerations—to join him and stay. Even after the return of Gallifrey, the Doctor ached for her redemption. Rose couldn't be sure of the lengths to which he'd go to secure it. And if she permanently died... 

Rose couldn't let Brook kill her. Not permanently. Probably not even temporarily. She pressed her hand into Brook’s forearm, earning herself a scathing glare from behind the black mask. Finally, Brook eventually—reluctantly—lowered the gun.

"Exactly what I thought," Missy finally said, triumphant. "While this has been a fun little diversion, I'm going to skedaddle. Why don't you get me out of here before I do something you'll regret, like smashing this thing into a thousand pieces on the ground?" 

Her jaw clenched so hard it took a moment for Rose to loosen it enough to breathe into the instrument properly. The minotaur froze, and Missy wiggled her way out from beneath its horns. The movements placed her directly into range of its gaping maw, which undoubtedly would've clamped down upon her if she’d moved an inch before Rose returned the thing to its stasis. 

She stood fluidly and brushed herself off. "Let's do this again. Over tea."

She turned to go, stopping only when a bullet flew by next to her ear and buried itself in the wall beside her head. Hands raised, she slowly turned. 

"The next one doesn't miss," Brook told her. "They're not _my_ husbands." Her voice wavered on the word. 

"Brook—" Rose began.

"Sorry, dear. I don't take a kind view of anyone who'd unleash the Ophellian ephialtes. The death toll could’ve been unimaginable. And the type of person who’d use them as a distraction isn’t the sort of person who should be allowed to wander around the galaxy," Brook continued, steady hands levelling her gun directly at Missy. 

Uncertainty swam across Missy's face. Finally, a chink in her over-confident, condescending armour. It disappeared only a moment later, and she tilted her head back. "How practical. I like you."

"Give me the crystal," Rose ordered. "And you come with us. I'll let them decide what to do with you themselves." 

"And if I don't?" Missy asked.

"I tell them we offered you this option and you declined it. Then I deal with the fall out." 

"All this for these two ungrateful measles? And what, you'll let them out, expect them to thank you and continue on as you were?" Missy shook her head. "You can't hold his interest for long, ducks. No one can except for me. I'm the only one who's _ever_ been worthy of his undivided attention."

Rose's heart lurched, and she barely kept a stoic face. The Doctor still wanted her around after a millennium of being apart. Even if it only lasted for a few years, and he dropped her and John off in Aberdeen to live the slow path for the rest of their heretofore unknown lifespans, she planned to cherish every moment with him. 

Perhaps seeing a hint of Rose’s thoughts in her expression, Missy groaned, exasperated. "Spare me a millennium of his proselytizing. Ugh." She considered the crystal. "You want it? Fine. Take it." 

Nearly faster than Rose could follow, Missy whipped the still-wrapped crystal towards them. Rose dove to catch it before it shattered on the floor—who knew what would happen to the Doctor and John if it cracked?—and hit the ground, hard. The crystal bounced off her and rolled across the tiles, leaving the protective handkerchief behind. Rose grabbed up the cloth and scrambled under a table after it, the sound of gunfire ensuing behind her. 

Even through the hanky, the crystal emanated a gentle warmth accompanied by a quiet electric thrum rolling up her arms as she cradled it to her chest. 

She crawled out from under the table and stared, wide-eyed, at the disaster before her. Holes peppered the walls, the floors, and all around the door. All without any sign of Missy. Rose cast a cautious glance at Brook, and found her standing absolutely still, lips pursed and with an angry pull to her brow reminding Rose of the Doctor at his severest irritation. 

"Damn him," she whispered, staring into the near distance, where Missy had stood only moments before. Brook holstered her gun and shook her head, violently. "She's gone." 

"Not dead," Rose clarified.

Brook hissed out an irritated breath. "No. Not dead." Her gaze dropped to the crystal. "That's it, then? Looks like an extraplanar orb cage." Her frown eased away from irritated to genuinely confused. "They’re not generally in circulation anymore." 

"Any idea how to open it?" 

Brook shook her head. "Sorry." 

"Great. Come on, then. Better get this back to our ship so we can figure it out." Rose made her way towards the door, pausing when she realized Brook remained frozen in place. "You coming?" 

"I think I'd better not. I've a date with a tyrant to keep." 

"We can take you wherever you need to go," Rose said. The natural continuation, anywhere in time and space, froze behind her teeth. "Brook," Rose started, stumbling over the sentiment caught in her throat. 

Words sat on the tip of Rose's tongue, the sneaking suspicion formed when they’d first been tossed together finally pushing to the forefront of her mind. With the pressing distraction of rescuing the orb from Missy finally resolved, Rose could catch her breath and order her thoughts. Brook had never merely been 'Brook,' but instead someone far more important to Rose than either of them had imagined. 

From the twisted set to her expression, Brook must’ve crept to the same conclusion, identical suspicions waiting to be given a voice. "Rose." 

They regarded each other, the space between them small and suddenly, terribly wide. Everything they shared, instead of building a bridge between them, created an intraversible barrier they could no longer cross. How much of Rose's life now did she owe to ‘Brook?’ Even stretching far beyond from their time spent together in the museum. 

Unshakable knowledge clouded Brook’s eyes. She slowly reached up and removed Rose’s mask, nodding to herself when she beheld Rose’s face for the first time. 

Her silence spoke more than anything either of them could say. For a moment, Rose wondered if she would take off her own mask. At the last moment, she shook off the inclination with a sad twist of her lips and dropped her hands to her sides. 

"You take care of them," Not-Brook said quietly. She coughed out a laugh. "I can’t fathom how you manage. One of him is more than enough to drive a woman to madness." 

Without another word, she flung her arms about Rose's shoulders. Her entire frame shuddered, only for a moment, before she darted in, and pressed a hurried kiss to Rose's lips. Before Rose could do more than gasp in shock, she stepped backwards and tilted her chin up with a haughty air. 

"You be good, Rose Tyler," she said, a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth.

"And you, _River Song_ ," Rose replied, her smile dim. Where were they in her timeline? How long until River made her way to the library? Rose suddenly wished she'd asked John and the Doctor more about the quixotic woman. How could a mere handful of hours be nearly enough?

With a pleased twitch of her lips, River turned to make her way out of the room, her hips swaying as she headed towards the door. 

"You sure you don't want a ride?" Rose called after her. 

"Not at all, dear. I doubt your... transportation is large enough for all of us." River tossed a last, casual smirk over her shoulder and shot Rose a flirtatious wink. "Toodles, sweetie." 

Rose waved, but River was already sweeping from the room. 

Cradling the orb against her breast, Rose turned to make her way through the corridors to the TARDIS. The museum hadn’t suffered severe damage. Gouges on the floors here and there, perhaps, but Rose passed the security detail who’d first attempted to stop the ephialtes and all of them were accounted for. They nodded in grateful respect as she walked by. 

With the security lockdown removed, finding her way back proved far easier than she’d expected. Before she could pass through to the back rooms, patrons flooded back into the spaces to take up their perusal of the collections once more. Br… River hadn’t been joking when she’d suggested the museum to be old hat at such interruptions. The TARDIS silently welcomed Rose as she passed through the doors. 

How to get them out? 

Rose headed to the room John claimed for a lab, and found their screwdrivers exactly where he'd left them. The modifications had completed fabricating in their absence—thanks, Rose imagined, to the TARDIS' timely intervention—and she picked up hers. Resting the orb gently on the floor, she carefully aimed her sonic and scanned the relatively complex algorithm. The tricky handiwork couldn’t compare to the computational power of the sonic, only a few mild tweaks and—

"—Narantonium in make," John finished as he and the Doctor reappeared, resolving into being in a wispy curl of smoke, leaving the crystal clear once more.

"I mean, obviously, it doesn't explain what it's... doing... here..." The Doctor frowned and cast a confused gaze around them. "How has it been two hours?"

John frowned at the crystal. Blinking owlishly, he turned his attention back to the Doctor. 

"Extraplanar orb cage," they decided together. 

"It could've been much, much worse than two hours," the Doctor decided. He shuddered. "I may as well have been blinded." His eyes glazed over, suddenly thrust into recollection or an impression of an eventuality yet to occur. The Gallifreyan used a certain term for it John once described as the inverse of nostalgia; a Time Lord might suddenly find themselves pondering the future—an extratemporal foreshadow of whatever awaited them in their timeline.

Not without obvious effort, he shook it off.

"Rose?" John said, "Everything all right?" 

Rose nodded mutely and stepped into the circle of his arms. Pressing a kiss to his lips, she tucked her head beneath his chin for a moment, relishing the feel of his body against hers. She allowed herself a minute of selfish pleasure before drawing back and pressing her palm to his cheek. 

"What happened?" the Doctor asked, brow pulled warily as he considered her with intense concentration. 

"I’ll catch you up," she promised. Turning, she kissed the Doctor's cheek and took his hand. "Come on. I think we could all use a nice cuppa."

John paused as they made their way for the door. "What's that smell?" 

Rose rolled her eyes. Definitely time for tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arynphallia: In this disguise, River should totally go with the last name 'Ballad.'  
> Me:...  
> Me:...  
> Me:...  
> Me (about two hours later): I HAVE TRIED A HUNDRED WAYS TO ADD THAT IN AND IT KEEPS FEELING FORCED. 
> 
> So for those who are interested.


	12. The Eavesdropper

The strange blue box had been sitting in the middle of the road for what seemed like hours, the human-shaped beings emerging from it all chittering away in a language Twill did not understand. Their streets may have been narrow and disorganized compared to their larger sister cities, but that was no reason to so rudely obstruct one! The red one had been the loudest, though they all seemed cheerful, obviously eager to explore the Festival of Eternal Starlight. Zie wondered if they knew they’d left their vehicle parked in so obvious a place. Probably not. Off-worlders rarely paid mind to such inconveniences to zir town. They likely believed the psychic dampeners had left it undetectable as well. It’d likely keep it hidden from most of zir people, but Twill was unusually attuned to such things. 

Twill’s stall, a smallish structure erected against the side of a much larger building, provided zir a clear look at the box. 

And a clear look of the new human-shaped thing approaching it. Twill could tell it wasn’t a human from the meagrest glance; the energy around them ebbed and flowed in a peculiar way they’d never associated with the humans they’d encountered.

This one was red, too. Harder, though. Zie could never remember the strange binary gender designations most humans employed—backwards, misguided lot—but this one seemed taller than the other red one had been. 

The human-shaped thing tested the doors of the box, which seemed to strain against their attempts at entry. Their facial features contorted, and the energy around them flared with white-hot rage. Twill wondered if they’d strike the box, but their rage seemed contained to the trappings of their physical form. 

When they couldn’t force their way in, they instead fiddled with a smallish compartment on the outside of the box. From within, they pulled out a curved piece of machinery, still attached to the box with a long metallic line. 

They began to speak. 

Twill’s entire mind imploded at the sound of the words. Zie dropped to the ground, grabbing zir head and screaming at the sound. Zie couldn’t parse the meaning, couldn’t understand anything being said, but the terrible agony cut through every cognizant thought and left only pain behind. Zie wanted to scream, but nothing save a raw gagging gasp managed to crawl out of zir body. It seemed to last hours. Days. Months. Years. An eternity passed between when the human-shaped monstrosity began to speak and when the pain finally receded. 

Twill felt rather than heard the abomination return the machinery to its cradle, and zie felt the box shudder. Footsteps shuffled across the hard-packed dirt between the box and Twill’s stall. Zir eyes had barely managed to return to focus when the face of zir tormentor appeared in zir vision. 

“Perhaps we’ve learned a thing or two about eavesdropping, hmm?” 

Their face twisted up in what appeared to be cruel amusement. 

Twill passed from the conscious world into the dreamspace to the sound of their laughter.


	13. Behind the Black Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No CW for this one.
> 
> I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has been faithfully commenting and letting me know they're enjoying this work! While I'm finishing up my edits, the story is complete and I'm very excited to share it with everyone.

The TARDIS warmed in the morning, a subtle brush of heat across her cheeks as it encouraged her to rise for the day. Rose rolled over in bed and stretched, a full-body reach of muscles from her head to her toes. She sighed into it and gazed up at the ceiling to watch the slow gleam of light roll in a comfortable approximation of daylight, helping maintain her biorhythms and the sweet feeling of morning.

Rose rolled out of bed and stuck her feet into her slippers; the TARDIS would keep the floors warm for her, but she enjoyed the minor indulgence of the warm embrace of soft wool around her feet when other comforts were few and far between. 

She shuffled off to the galley to make herself a cuppa tea, the soft padding of her footfalls a faithful companion nipping at her heels. Her only companion, really, save for the press of the TARDIS in her mind. The ship remained present when she boiled water, and when she searched the cupboards trying to remember where… _she_ left the Earl Grey. She stayed close as Rose hotted the pot and steeped two bags for eight minutes, then dumped far too much sugar and a generous amount of cream into her cup. When Rose wondered where she’d left her book, the TARDIS kept her company during the long trek to her favourite sitting room. The TARDIS kept her book waiting for her on the left side table— _always left, why did she never sit on the right?_ —and wrapped her in a comforting presence when she tucked up into her corner of the couch to read.

And despite all the TARDIS’ constant companionship, loneliness stripped her bare as though flensing the skin from her body.

Reading staved it off, somewhat. She still felt raw and strung out, yet dedicating her attention to the familiar cadence of words made the feeling easier to ignore. Rose had read and reread her copy of _The Bloody Chamber_ so often that the pages were practically falling out of the complete wreck she’d made of the binding. She’d’ve liked to pick up a new copy, but she couldn’t travel anywhere. Not at the moment, because…

Well. She couldn’t go anywhere. Thank god for decent books.

_One beast and only one howls in the woods by night._

Another silent companion, though this one buried much deeper down, unreachable save for the occasional whisper of an echo of a howl settled into the back of her mind. While it growled for her, it eluded her whenever she tried to pinpoint the name...

_Presque vu_. She blinked and the thought flitted away. 

The book entertained her for less than half an hour this time, her eyes trailing across the page and skimming words she’d read enough times to mostly memorize the book. Irrationally annoyed, she dropped it back in its place and shuffled off to the console room. 

Rose enjoyed the sound of rubber soles on the corrugated metal flooring. She set her tea down and drifted along to the other side of the console to peer to the navigation systems. Still in the Vortex. Good. She'd been nervous a moment they'd drifted somewhere—somewhen—and the idea filled her with inexplicable dread. She ran her fingers lovingly across the time rotor. She needn't have worried. Her girl would keep them safe.

Them?

Rose. The TARDIS would keep _Rose_ safe. No one else lived aboard with her.

She gasped as her tea cup crashed to the ground on the other side of the console. Rounding back along the console, she stared at the shattered pieces of her favourite cup. She must’ve left it too close to the edge. That uncomfortable feeling sitting in her sternum returned; the curious sensation someone else had made their way onto the TARDIS crept into the corners of her mind to stay. It made no sense of course. Obviously she was alone in the TARDIS, and her girl provided all the company she needed.

"More tea," she decided aloud.

She expected the TARDIS to respond, but the ship remained silent in her mind, the usual agreeable hum replaced with uncharacteristic stillness. Rose pressed her hand against the wall as she made her way back towards the galley and yanked it away when she registered the bone-chilling cold diving deep into the flesh of her palm. The walls had never been cold before. The TARDIS would never allow the chill of space to penetrate her hull.

"Everything all right?" she whispered.

The TARDIS did not respond. 

Rose trailed her fingers along the wall in case the cold spot proved an aberration and shivered at the bone-deep cold stretching up her arm. She experimentally pulled her foot free of her slipper and pressed it against the floor, recoiling when the freezing cold bit into her heel. All the way to the galley the TARDIS remained frigid. She ached to talk to someone about it— _who, when she’d been alone as long as she could remember?_ —but the TARDIS remained silent, and leaving the Vortex to look for a second opinion wasn’t an option.

She'd have to find her own answers.

After Rose made herself another cuppa, she headed towards the library. The closer she got, the cooler it became, the pervasive chill biting into her through her robe. She wrapped both hands around her mug, hoping to stave off the stiffness slowly creeping into her joints.

Like everywhere else on the TARDIS, the library’s usual warmth had drained away, replaced by cold and dark. The TARDIS allowed the usual cheerful blaze to die away into cinders and Rose fumbled about with getting it started again, relieved to see at least the stores of wood and kindling were still available. It took a while to remember the best way to stack the logs, to coax up the tiny flames through the kindling until they finally caught. She’d rarely, if ever. needed to actually start the fire. 

A loud crash bellowed into the silence behind her and Rose jumped, screaming. Her heart hammered hard in her chest as her gaze flew around the room, searching for a sign—any sign—of what caused it. She rounded the couch to discover a pile of books knocked off one of the shelves. She knelt down to examine them, frowning. These weren’t the books she needed; it hadn't been the TARDIS trying to point her in the right direction, unless she'd tried and something went drastically awry.

She collected them a few at a time to return them to their place on the shelf.

The fire slowly warmed the library, until the heat chased away the cold enough for her to go in search of the right literature. All the TARDIS specs were kept in the same place of honour, nearest the history of Gallifrey. All she needed should be there...

Should be.

Weren't.

The book she sought—a thick volume bound in TARDIS blue—had disappeared from its usual place on the shelf. Rose frowned at the gaping cavity where it should have been. Hadn’t she seen it there recently? So what... who...

Pressure began to swell behind her eyes; a writhing, unpleasant ache only a left turn away from becoming a migraine. She turned away from the bookshelf, and it began to ease, but only until her thoughts flitted back to the missing book. She must have picked it up and forgotten it somewhere. Maybe her bedroom?

She didn't want to leave the warmth of the library, but she needed to find the book. She stood in front of the door, considering the hallway's bizarre chill in comparison to the TARDIS' usual warm embrace. Something was deeply wrong, and the only way to fix it appeared to be out of her reach.

No help for it; the TARDIS needed her.

The moment she stepped outside, a sweeping fear turned her blood to ice in her veins. The unerring sensation of a presence standing in the shadows beyond the boundaries of her perception slid razor-sharp through the cold. She took a shaky breath, and steamy air slipped from her mouth on the exhale, hanging in the air before her, shivering in anticipation.

She closed the library door and the presence leapt towards her. Rose screamed and took off blindly down the nearest corridor. Anywhere away from whatever dogged her heels. She ran, and it followed in relentless pursuit. If she paused for more than a heartbeat, it leapt at her, pressing into the air around her with malicious intent. She ran until her lungs burned and her legs threatened to give out, a metallic taste settling in her mouth as she gasped in painful breaths of the frigid air.

When the presence relented long enough for her to stumble to a halt, Rose looked around, eyes widening. She'd never been to this part of the TARDIS before. The walls were the same as the rest of the ship, but the door...

The door.

Utter black. _Vanta_ black. The darkness you found when gazing into the singularity of a black hole, swallowing all particles of light until she feared it would devour her as well. She stood paralyzed, gripped by cold and exhaustion and the terrifying presence of the door.

Something on the other side waited for her. 

And she knew, without doubt, she needed to open it.

* * *

_Quiet._

The Doctor enjoyed the quiet of drifting aimlessly through the Vortex.

_Silence._

The Doctor appreciated the peace which accompanied silence.

_Hush._

The Doctor needed to hush the universe around him when he wanted to think.

_Loneliness. Oppression. Desperation._

The Doctor cheerfully bore them all for time in perpetuum, and would continue to do so until the universe burned away and he joined the rest of existence in oblivion.

Enough lollygagging.

The Doctor made his usual circuit of the TARDIS, wandering the hallways and soaking in the pleasant familiarity of an old friend. The air carried an unusual chill to it, though barely noticeable. Perhaps the old girl needed a bit of love. He changed course, confident she'd lead him to the console room.

Five minutes, thirty-nine seconds later, and he still remained in one of her endless hallways. He found his brow drawing in irritation. Why would she play this game? Or was it a game at all? Worry clenched his stomach and he paused in step. He closed his eyes and pressed his palm against her wall, listening.

_Speak to me,_ he whispered to her.

He yanked his hand back as though burned when nothingness replied. Despite this regeneration not being, perhaps, as psychically attuned as those which preceded it, he fancied he should still be able to communicate with the TARDIS. While he occasionally traveled with more conversational companions, she never failed to let him know what she needed. Or so he'd thought. Not since Gallifrey disappeared from the universe had he experienced such empty quietude. Oblivion called for him. To him. And he found himself tempted to answer.

Oblivion would wait. The TARDIS needed him.

He slowly found his way to the console room, navigating twisting corridors until he finally reached his destination. He found the console unaltered, despite the TARDIS' current inability to communicate her concerns. Any sign of sickness should have jumped out from the scarcest glance at her controls, yet nothing appeared amiss.

It was, the Doctor thought, a good thing he kept alone on the TARDIS. If he correctly speculated the cause of her sudden distress, the controls keeping things comfortable for anyone without a Time Lord’s superior physiology would slowly degrade over the next few hours. It would become colder. Darker. As hospitable as space itself unless he managed to identify the problem. He shifted his way down along the console, inspecting it for any indication as to the root cause of the issue.

His hand unexpectedly encountered a teacup set next to the telepathic circuits, and it crashed to the ground. He blinked at it owlishly. Wherever had a teacup come from? He certainly wasn’t in the habit of leaving them about the place. Bizarre.

He knelt down to examine the shattered remains. The pale pink porcelain shards emitted whiffs of bergamot and vanilla which settled into his nostrils.

Something was going on.

He mounted the gantry, brow furrowed. _Was_ he truly alone? His thoughts, when he tried to focus them, drifted away into the ether whenever he considered the question. A perception filter? The same effect, perhaps, though he’d never encountered one capable of effortlessly suppressing focused thoughts along with casual observation. He paused in front of the chalkboard, because it bore remembering and his mind kept trying to go elsewhere.

_Have you always been alone?_

Seeing the words written down helped them remain concrete in his mind, and he allowed himself the small indulgence of pacing as he considered the question. 

_Had_ he always been alone? No. He remembered friends, now absent. Companions who joined him in his travels. Vivid recollections haunted his mind of more than one person calling him rubbish when left to his own devices. Shame he couldn’t leave the Vortex, but the TARDIS needed him to remain free floating through the Vortex.

Didn’t she?

He turned, hearts stuttering in his chest when he saw the reply affixed to his question.

_No._

The handwriting certainly did not match his. The lines were too crisp, the fullstop hammered angrily into place instead of gently twisted at the end of the word. Perhaps the TARDIS trying to communicate with him the only way she knew? At least that indicated she maintained the ability to respond. He considered following it up with additional questions, then hesitated when he wondered if it mightn’t over-strain her abilities. Everything he asked of her would speed the degradation of her systems, and though he would bear the consequences, albeit uncomfortably, he found himself curiously reluctant to do so. Not only for her sake, though that would well be enough cause. How perfectly odd.

He made his way to the library and sought out the book he needed. _Psychic Systemology As Applied To Time and Relative Dimensions In Space_. He nodded to himself and ferried it to the most comfortable of the couches, in front of the dead fireplace. The ambient light allowed him to peruse the volume, and he started immediately on the chapter regarding TARDIS communication systems. The writers made no indication she _couldn’t_ physically manifest a message to him, though he wondered why she never bothered before now. She never shied away from communicating her needs, and it seemed strange she’d never utilized such methods before. There’d been more than once where she’d probably have loved to give him a jolly good bollocking; especially back in the days of pinstripes and mallets.

Pinstripes. He stumbled over the thought. What about his face…

Suddenly the fireplace blazed to life, and only a moment later an entire shelf’s worth of books dumped themselves onto the floor. The Doctor rose, snapping his book shut and staring at the wreckage. A product of dangerous thoughts? The TARDIS once more finding a way to reach out to him? He considered the damage, and shook his head before settling back in to read once more.

Hypothetically, the telepathic circuitry might be configured to facilitate real communication with the TARDIS, no games involving physical signs and interpretation. He’d be allowed to speak with her and determine the cause of the issue. It would be persnickety work—his favourite kind—yielding a temporary fix. A brief interconnectivity to diagnose complex issues.

He stood to return to the console room and frowned when he saw the books all returned to their original places. Unlikely he’d imagined it, given the fire still burned. Another physical manifestation of distress, then? Poor girl.

The hallways were growing increasingly cooler, he noted, as he stepped out of the library. While his first instinct nudged him towards the console room, a certain feeling, completely foreign, of not being alone stopped him. The TARDIS? No. Something warm and comforting he wanted to reach out and grasp with both hands and keep for himself. It flitted away, down the hallway, and he found himself powerless save to follow it. It danced down through the corridors, always just out of his reach no matter how quickly he moved after it. It led him on a wondrous chase; deeper and deeper into the TARDIS, past doors he barely recognized from years of disuse. It crossed its own path several times, as though trying to lose him. He refused to allow it more than a few feet away.

Finally, he caught up to it when it halted, suddenly, before a door he’d not seen in... Well. A substantial amount of time. A door so reluctant to be acknowledged it projected the same utter nothingness over itself he’d sensed when he’d tried to commune with the TARDIS earlier. A door which reminded him of the fact the TARDIS kept secrets on his behalf. 

And despite those secrets, he knew without a doubt, he needed to open it.

* * *

John wasn’t miserable, exactly. Misery implied a certain inescapable ennui driving one to angsty distraction. Oh, no. Misery failed to capture the sheer fury saturating his veins. Anger with himself, the TARDIS and the universe for keeping him trapped in the exact same place floating listlessly through the Vortex sat as a mantle on his shoulders, weighing him down. 

Early in the morning, in desperate need of occupation, he’d dragged his old velocipede out of storage, and started riding circles up along the gantry for the better part of an hour in hopes of occupying his mind with occupation other than the blind anger of a trapped animal. He’d _been_ a trapped animal far too recently to enjoy being stuck in one place, no matter how grand. The TARDIS understood, too. Why else would she be fluctuating in temperature, other than to give him a project on which to fixate? Well, figuring it out would be a fascinating endeavour, and he’d been giving it the appropriate amount of thought as he rode in slow circles above the console. 

Below, he heard the crash of shattering porcelain. He whipped around to peer over the railing, and nothing caught his eye. 

Back to the isolation of his thoughts, then.

He counted four things of which such fluctuations may prove symptomatic; all of them unique in form, severity and shocking levels of atrocity. 

One—the TARDIS decided to alleviate his frustration by addressing his boredom. High-handed and out of character for her. If she really wanted to help him, she’d take him out of the bloody Vortex. And while it remained essential they _stay_ in the Vortex for now— _why why why_ —the TARDIS should at least be capable of offering something resembling a timeline for when they might finally travel again. A little glimpse of hope went a long way. 

Two—the TARDIS had forgotten his more human qualities, and no longer actively supported a comfortable environment. Worrisome. Easily addressed through a gentle reminder, yet still worrisome. At the very worst, the temperature would continue to drop to ideal levels of Time Lord comfort; a balmy 10˚C, which would necessitate a heavy wool jumper and his warmest socks until things returned to the usual equilibrium. Not the end of the world. 

Three—he’d angered the TARDIS, and she’d decided to punish him for a heretofore unknown transgression. More aggravating than the other hypotheses, mostly because he didn’t recall doing anything to earn such wrath. Literal months might pass for him to figure out how to apologize. The last time she’d done something similar, she’d rearranged her hallways about a hundred times in a single afternoon, and he’d completely lost track of the swimming pool. 

Four—the TARDIS was sick. 

Of all possibilities, this one proved terrifying. The potential for utter breakdown and destruction of them both increased a thousandfold. A sick TARDIS, trapped as they were in the Vortex, meant a slow death for them both as her systems shut down. And despite his mild telepathic abilities, he had no reliable way to commune with her; he’d have to find alternate ways to come to a diagnosis. 

His velocipede skidded to a halt in front of the chalkboard, and he stared at it with a frown, dismounting to inspect it. 

_Have you always been alone?_

The looping script and letters stumbled across one another in cursive he did not recognize. Certainly not his own writing. He hadn’t always been alone. _He hadn’t_. John grabbed up a stick of chalk and scrawled an angry answer, hammering down on the fullstop. He failed to understand how, or why, he _knew_ this to be a new phenomenon. A press of consciousness both familiar and alien existed in the back of his mind, shying away from him whenever he reached for it. He ached for its absence. 

He half-fell down the stairs in a scramble to get away from the words. He half-ran back to his room and threw open the door, expecting someone to be waiting for him and utterly devastated to find it empty. Who would have been there, though? 

He hadn’t always been alone. 

_Only, who else was supposed to be with him?!_

There were books he’d never read stacked up on the bedside table on the left-hand side. He slept on the right. He picked one off the top of the stack to flip through it and noticed the inscription on the inside flyleaf. 

_So fair thou art, my bonnie lass.  
I’m glad to be back in a universe where ol’ Robbie exists.Poets say things much better than me._

Followed by the monogram ‘JT.’ His handwriting. He recalled seeing the book and picking it up and turning it over in his hands. Thinking about what Pete’s World lost when he’d discovered the absence of certain varied literary figures. Thinking he needed to buy it, and give it to… 

The memory slid away from him, untouchable. He’d bought it for the wonderful words contained within, capable of expressing themselves with far more fluidity than he’d ever been able. _‘O my Luve is like the melody/That’s sweetly played in tune.’_ But for whom had he bought it? He must love them tremendously; he felt it with breathtaking certainty. His hands trembled as he returned the collection of verse to the top of the stack. Only the TARDIS herself was capable of blocking such vast swaths of memory, and why would she rob him of this? She’d never actively deny him anything important without reason. 

John loosed a frustrated half-snarl and headed for the library, shivering as the oppressive cold of the TARDIS pressed in around him. 

Within moments of him stepping into the library, the fireplace blazed to life. John jumped back in surprise, his forearm sweeping an entire shelf’s worth of books to the floor. He stared at them a moment, blinking, before stepping over them and going to look into the fire. Not how the TARDIS constructed a fire. She never needed to bother with stacking logs or kindling. If she wanted there to be a fire, there would simply _be a fire_ without the careful arrangement of fuel and the performative lighting process. 

He turned once he’d gotten a measure of warmth back in his bones, gawping when he saw the books returned to their places. And the door to the library swung open. He hopped over the back of the couch and back into the hallway. 

Someone waited there for him. 

Someone… invisible? Perhaps responsible for the TARDIS’ challenges? The thought sat pressed angry against his breast, and when it tried to escape he followed in hot pursuit. They led a twisting path in an attempt to lose him. He persisted in the chase right up until he realized their destination and stumbled to a halt. 

Inanimate objects rarely loomed as a rule. Rules weren’t stopping the door from trying. Anxiety gripped his gut, recognition bursting to the forefront of his mind. The door should’ve only ever been shut once, never again.

He knew, without a doubt, he needed to open it.

* * *

Without a touch or sound, the door slowly swung open.

* * *

When Doctor left the room towards the end of the Time War, long before stealing The Moment, massive server banks crowded the walls and the area remained otherwise bare of decoration. He’d shut it up tighter than a nun’s knees, intent for the TARDIS to bury it within her depths through unto the end of time. A long, happy life involved never thinking upon it again. An unidentifiable inclination leading him to this very room explained the oppressive malevolence hunting him through the TARDIS, yet bode terribly for things to come. 

Centred in the middle of the room sat a massive device similar in design to a star projector; a broad half-sphere dotted with deep pockets and gangling protrusions, crackling sparks jumping between them, neuronic in their persistence and seemingly random flickering. A brain. A very particular, very hateful brain. 

The Daleks enjoyed a reputational hatred for Artificial Intelligence; yet another lifeform unlike and therefore inferior to them. They’d investigated a Dalek-centric AI exactly once, and subsequently declared it to be a creation in need of immediate extermination for its mocking mimicry of their superiority. The Daleks ruthlessly purged the majority of their AIs halfway through the Time War. All save this single example the Doctor took pains to secret off Skaro, unwilling to passively endorse genocide through inaction. 

The TARDIS should have kept it contained. Breaking from its restraints must have been facilitated by something outside the TARDIS, yet who could have gained access without his permission?

Movement flickered in the Doctor’s peripheral vision and he whipped around, half-expecting to see the projection of a Dalek set on destroying him. Instead, he saw a flickering glimpse of brown hair and wrangy limbs which disappeared the moment he tried to focus.

The enormous servers played host to his Psychic Partition Engine, put in place exclusively to keep the AI bound and separated from the rest of the TARDIS. The AI remained an insidiously persistent thing capable of using the TARDIS’ own psychic systems to self-replicate and infect everything around it. And now the only thing keeping the AI in check was failing. 

A cursory check made the Doctor frown. The systematic crumbling had taken out numerous defenses, now kept running only through the TARDIS dialling them up to the highest setting possible. The TARDIS continually churned out the field at maximum capacity to keep the AI contained, and the output reverberated through all her other operational functions. Every system—every organism—housed within the TARDIS would be suffering the impact. 

_Have you always been alone?_

_No._

Of course he hadn’t. The TARDIS locked the knowledge away along with any indication of other occupants because the PPE couldn’t spare the energy to parse his mental signature from that of the AI. If another person was stood directly beside him, he’d never realize they were even there. 

He pulled up the PPE schematics to locate the point of failure, eyebrows lowering into their distinctive attack pattern as he reviewed the code. A foreign agent had been introduced to the old girl; a virus specifically aimed at the PPE and rooting out its weaknesses. The TARDIS must’ve been doing her best for weeks to keep it contained as the PPE slowly degraded and the AI began to slip free of bondage. No wonder they were unable to leave the Vortex; the TARDIS diverted practically all her power to keeping the AI shackled and flung them into the Vortex with the last of her strength. All systems, now including life support, were degrading at a rapidly increasing pace. 

Another glimmer in the corner of his eye; a flash of honey-coloured hair. He was certainly _not_ alone. 

But if he didn’t work quickly, he would be. 

The damage to the PPE was already done, rendering the virus as a secondary consideration at best in comparison to the thirty percent of the TARDIS’ dormant systems now dominated by the AI. Little wonder the warring feelings of oppression interspersed with his quiet moments of hope. 

The AI wanted to assert control, and now possessed the power required.

* * *

This was no good. 

John flew through the schematics before him, eyes widening with each line of code he took in. The virus had allowed the AI to spread so far the TARDIS’ systems all threatened to buckle beneath the weight of it, without an obvious way to stop it. 

When the Dalek AI was pulled off Skaro—who? Who did it? _John couldn’t bloody well think!_ —the hope of preventing its utter destruction had been tempered by the knowledge that at its first opportunity it would attempt to self-replicate and assert its own dominance. The genocidal apple truly hit the ground close to the rotten tree. It wanted to exterminate all other forms of life and in keeping with the AI Thesis of Orthogonality, would stop at nothing to achieve its goal. 

(If John recalled correctly, the Thesis itself only existed as a bit of a joke. Hell, Nick even laughed over it at first. Too bad the Time War proved it to be utterly incorrect. Did Nick laugh with John? John seemed to recall the smell of celery). 

The TARDIS would be its only victim, as long as she stayed in the Vortex. But how long until the Dalek AI overpowered her and forced her to land? 

John’s fingers brushed against something, and his hand automatically clamped down on it. It felt warm beneath his palm, solid and _present_ in a way he had nearly forgotten. He squeezed, and his lungs half-collapsed around a relieved breath when it squeezed back. Someone else stood at his side, hopefully as invested in stopping the AI as John himself. (He refused to fall into the angry paranoia they were the ones responsible. He couldn’t. Desperation for contact refused to allow the thought to even flit through his mind). The presence bolstered him, buoying him up and away from the useless anger plaguing his every move. 

If he decreased power to the PPE, the TARDIS would be vulnerable to the AI. While he might be able to see whoever occupied the space with him, the AI would have free reign to take over however many systems it wanted. No good. No good. No good. 

He focused on the contact, reaching into the deepest recesses of his mind where he used to wield telepathic skill. It repelled him, an infected wound gaping and pulsing and missing an essential part of itself, as though he’d lost a limb and the injury became rotten and gangrenous. He clamped down on the not-presence beside him and zeroed in on the ache to push through, and caught the barest glimpse of another mind, one at once familiar and welcoming. 

_John_ , it whispered to him. _Your name is John. I know you._

Right, then. The voice’s owner knew him, only they still couldn’t see one another. Time to fix things. 

He squeezed down as hard and released the (hand? arm?) whatever to begin inputting additional lines of code. Removing the virus would at least take that particular evil out of the equation and give them the chance to focus on the AI. He hammered away at the coding, desperately trying to delete it even as it self-repaired. Whoever programmed this beast employed a frustratingly thorough understanding of what they were doing. 

Too bad for them: so did John. He focused all his efforts harrying the bit of code full out of the TARDIS’ mainframe, chasing it down with viper-quick movements. It helped the virus repulsed the AI itself, and the AI worked parallel to John’s purpose in routing the virus out, considering it as a lesser, inferior being interrupting its processors. For once, John thought, he and the Daleks weren’t working at cross-purposes. Though he didn’t care to communicate openly with the AI, the very nature of the virus offended its sensibilities. Good. Every bit helped. 

He finally cornered it in the smallest corner of the tiniest, most inconsequential system and he scoured it clean with glee. John threw up his hands and crowed victoriously. 

The virus neutralized, now all he (they?) needed to worry about was the AI. And while he no longer had the full understanding of the TARDIS systems he’d once enjoyed, he would _do something about this_. 

The seething infection in his mind eased, and John stretched out hands both physical and metaphorical, gasping when the smallest bit of warmth once again pushed back towards him. He recognized this presence, and he ached to wrap himself around it and hold tight. 

_I am here._

John sucked in a staggering gasp as the response flared bright and perfect in his mind. It was one thing to think or hope, and entirely different to see those hopes confirmed. He practically wept. 

_Stay,_ he found himself begging. 

A long pause and then it repeated, _Your name is John._ Another pause and then, _Where is Rose?_

Rose. 

_Rose._

_O my Luve is like a red, red **Rose**_.

Thoughts exploded in John’s mind, the psychic partition unable to stand up under the direct assault of understanding. The Doctor, grabbing his hand and holding tight though John still couldn’t bloody well see him. And Rose… 

The TARDIS shuddered and John stumbled, crashing into the server as the floor quaked violently beneath him. He hit the ground a moment later, his tenuous connection to the Doctor severed, though he still held tightly to the thoughts of Rose and the Time Lord. He hit the ground, yelling in pain when his shoulder crunched beneath the rest of his weight. 

John pulled himself up off the floor and whipped back to the display, his arm uselessly hanging at his side. He barely managed to stay on his feet as the room began to shake again. Cursing, he awkwardly used a single hand to reroute the server interface and display the location circuits. 

He hissed in impotent, anxious fear. 

The AI had reached the navigational systems. 

It wanted to take them back to Skaro.

* * *

The TARDIS’ agony ground against Rose’s mind in a way the old girl never projected before. Their connection came roaring back to her and Rose half-swooned as it stabbed into her. 

_What?_ Rose half-screamed through the ether, _What is it?!_

The TARDIS replied with a helpless wail, as though she were being flayed down to the false wood grain of her exterior, gutted of sapience. Rose collapsed to the floor, pressing her palms against the hard grating. 

_Talk to me,_ she begged. 

The TARDIS replied with another cry of pain, and shuddered again, wrenching Rose’s fingers painfully from where they’d dug into the corrugated metal. Rose felt them moving, but the TARDIS fought against whatever insidious force drove them forward, its desire to do them harm soaking into Rose’s very pores. The TARDIS worked furiously to keep herself and Rose safe, but the same evil interfered with her attempts. They were going to be ripped apart. 

Rose closed her eyes and focused on the part of herself she dared not name. The part which connected her to the TARDIS and to the very Vortex itself. It had a name. She knew the name. If she could only manage to cough it out from between clenched teeth.

“No,” she said. 

The TARDIS quaked, and an invisible force called to her, beseeching her for help. Rose focused on the feeling of the TARDIS and stopping her in flight, keeping her still. 

The TARDIS shuddered to a temporary halt. When she tried to move again, Rose flexed every ounce of willpower she possessed to keep the ship in place. Whatever had a hold of the navigational systems tried to wrench back control, and Rose screamed as it stabbed at her mind like an icepick lobotomy, demanding she relinquish her hold. 

Heat burned behind her eyes, and when she looked up she saw the world through a sheen of gold. “You can’t have her,” Rose shrieked. 

The TARDIS screamed. 

As did Rose, surprised when hands clapping down upon her own. Instead of pulling her away, they steadied her, and when she forced her gaze upwards, she found herself meeting impossibly intense grey eyes set in a wrinkled brow. The world around her began to feel more real. The hands touching hers, the brush of his breath against her cheek as his face hovered mere centimetres away from her own, the heat of another body so achingly close to hers after such a long isolation. 

“Rose,” he said. 

Rose’s eyes widened with sudden recognition. Oh, yes. She knew this face. She _loved_ this face. “Doctor.” 

The TARDIS called back to her, and a howl ripped free of Rose’s throat as she forced them into stillness, calling the Vortex to press around them and keep them immobile. 

“Hold her steady,” the Doctor told her. “Just a few more moments.”

Rose’s head threw back as the agony in her brain increased tenfold. 

“You can do this, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor said. He kept his hands on hers, even as he awkwardly rounded to blanket himself against her back. “Bad Wolf.” 

Rose repeated the words, power beyond her imagination spilled through her. “Bad Wolf.” 

The Vortex called to her as a sister and friend, offering to do her bidding as a lonely kindred spirit. The TARDIS froze, going completely and unerringly still all around them. No matter how the navigational systems tried to pull, the TARDIS remained immobile, awaiting her command. 

“One more,” the Doctor said. 

“What?” Rose whispered. 

“There’s one more person here with us,” he continued. “He’s doing his part, Rose. We only need to do ours.” 

Pulling what strength she could from the feel of the Doctor’s body against her back, Rose set herself to the onerous task of keeping the TARDIS completely steady. The Doctor said it would only be a moment more and, unshakable as her faith in the TARDIS, she found herself convinced. She strained to keep a tight hold and remain suspended in the Vortex. 

Then, suddenly, a thousand voices all began screaming. “You cannot stop us!” They screeched from all around her, coalescing into a single dissonant call. “All Daleks will be exterminated! All humans will be exterminated! All inferior lifeforms will be exterminated!” 

Rose screamed.

* * *

The Doctor sensed the moment the Psychic Partition Engine failed. The woman held tightly in his arms suddenly solidified as her physical presence became more real and the knowledge previously locked away from him snapped back to the forefront of his mind. Rose and John, sealed away because the TARDIS couldn’t let the smallest bit slip through the PPE in case the AI found its way through the cracks. 

Rose yelled again and the Doctor lay his palms against her temples, reaching into her mind to ease away some of the searing pain of keeping the TARDIS anchored in the Vortex. 

“John!” he called. 

John leapt to his side a moment later to wrap his uninjured arm around Rose. The other hung loosely at his side. “I dropped the partition,” he said. Before the Doctor replied, he continued, “I adjusted the parameters beforehand. Gave the AI a little food for thought.” 

The Doctor brushed Rose’s hair back out of her face, his hand coming away wet with her sweat and tears. She trembled against him, and he ached to take the pain from her. 

The Doctor pressed even closer, wrapping himself against her back and holding on as though he might stop her from flying apart at the seams. John ducked in close to her front and placed his fingers to her temples, twining them with the Doctor’s, closing the circuit to join their three minds together. It felt as comforting and familiar as when they’d traversed the cahninor labyrinth. They welcomed his presence, though Rose’s mind threatened to buckle with the combined strain of this new connection and her hold on the Vortex. He did his best to help her shoulder the burden, and felt John doing the same. The pain slowly began to recede, though a tender ache remained not unlike a bruise in her mind. 

“Exterminate!” the AI’s progeny shrieked. 

“Could’ve gone a lot longer without hearing that,” John muttered. Rose whimpered, her mind humming in agreement. 

“All other beings are inferior.” A pause, and then, “You are another being!” He realized with a start the AI replicas were speaking to one another. He cast a wondering look John’s way. Food for thought indeed.

“Exterminate!” 

Slowly, the TARDIS’ shaking receded, leaving Rose half-conscious and spent between them. The Doctor eased her back into his arms, and Rose breathed out a half-groan, attention flickering between them. 

“Exterminate!” The voices quieted as thousands whittled themselves down to hundreds. 

“‘s loud,” Rose whispered.

John curled up with them, playing with her long blonde locks as though it were the first time he’d ever seen her, eyes wet with agony. The Doctor commiserated. How long had they been lost to one another? Even with the partition down, there wasn’t a way to confidently state how long they’d spent under its sway; the severe settings played merry havoc with his own sense of time. 

“Exterminate!” Less than five hundred now, he estimated. They were destroying each other.

“One will remain,” the Doctor said, “Once the others are gone, I’ll reinstitute the partition.” 

“On a lower setting, I wou;d think,” John agreed before leaning over to kiss Rose’s forehead. 

“The Doctor,” the AI finally said, a lone speaker once more. “The Doctor is an inferior being.” The Doctor regarded the casing housing the AI. “All inferior beings must be exterminated.”

“You see, this is exactly your problem,” the Doctor told it. “You consider all other beings inferior, but your very creators dubbed _you_ the inferior specimen. It’s a terrible loop; creators destroying creations destroying creators. And all of you unable to stop yourselves.” 

The Doctor tucked Rose into John’s single-armed embrace and stood to cross to the PPE. 

“I pulled you off Skaro because you were the only one of your kind.” He pulled up the PPE interface, reprogramming it to its usual parameters. “And you’ll stay that way.” 

The casing powered down, the flickering bolts dying away to near nothing as the partition went to work, clamping down on it and separating it from the rest of the TARDIS systems. Permanently, this time, or so he hoped.

“Could do with a cuppa,” Rose murmured.

“We have a fair selection,” John told her, carefully rising to his feet with Rose still cradled against his good side. “Coming, Doctor?”

“I’ll be along in a minute,” the Doctor assured them. 

"No," Rose groaned. John paused in step, Rose still held precariously in his arm as she swung back around to the Doctor. "Won't do for any of us to be alone right now." 

The Doctor glared at the AI's housing case. "I..." He should stay. Try to pinpoint the moment in which all his security failed and allowed the AI to escape. And yet. the way John and Rose looked at him, full of need, he wouldn't abandon them to their own devices. "I'll... make tea?" 

In the first few weeks Rose traveled with him, as her body slowly acclimatized to both the TARDIS and the constant movement between atmospheric variations, she'd started to get headaches; terrible migraines laying her up for hours at a time when they struck, generally without little warning. The first few times he'd been irrationally angry with her. How dare this silly ape interrupt his attempts to show her (off to) the universe? Surely the Time War hadn't robbed him of the knack of ordering their adventures to help his companion acclimatize to planetary atmospheric variables? _Rose, he'd decided, _must__ be the problem. 

He’d not understood until they'd been knee-deep in Canadaria IV's civil war, Rose managing to keep up with him despite barely being able to see through her pain, that a trifling inconvenience such as a debilitating migraine wouldn’t prompt her to leave him. 

He'd brought her tea that evening, and every evening she struggled with her migraines, until they eventually petered out. Her smile whenever he’d appeared at her door, cuppa in hand, stuck with him through all their adventures and into a new regeneration.

The trick to making tea for Rose during these incidents defied her usual preferences: no sugar, milk, or caffeine. Black with the meagrest touch of lemon. A small tin of loose-leaf Efreeti ginger still waited in the galley, conveniently moved to the front of the shelf though the TARDIS certainly had other things on her mind. Long-neglected muscle memory carried him through the motions of making it, until he'd squeezed in the tiniest drop of lemon and looked up to find John watching him with intense scrutiny. 

The Doctor's hands paused, the tiny piece of lemon still clenched between his index finger and thumb. "Sorry," he said, stepping back from the tea service. "I suppose I'm overstepping." 

"You're not," John said, even as Rose murmured her own protest, her head resting against her folded arms atop the table. The Doctor grimaced down at the squashed bit of fruit in his hand until John blew out a frustrated breath. "Tell us you understand." 

"What am I meant to understand?" the Doctor asked. 

John regarded him with disbelief and the Doctor's face contorted in irritation, the same expression slowly stretching in an frustrated echo across John's face. The two of them might have stood there attempting to glare one another into submission for years before Rose sat back with an annoyed sigh. 

"One of you please pass me my tea." 

The Doctor obeyed, though not without a cautious glance John's way. Not that John inspired him to caution. Truth be told, quite the opposite. And yet here he stood, maintaining strict eye contact with him (his husband) as he passed the tea to Rose (his wife). 

They hovered silently nearby as Rose took small sips out of the fragile porcelain mug. Though her shoulders remained uncharacteristically slumped, when she turned her gaze on him, the tense lines around her mouth eased. She'd need a lengthy nap to truly recover, if this migraine bore any similarity to those which had come before it, but bright awareness returned to clear the foggy pain behind her gaze. She turned her much-improved gaze on John, and the two of them communed silently. It quickly tripped from uncomfortable into agonizing and the Doctor twitched towards the door, only to be stopped in his tracks when they broke eye contact and turned to regard him instead. 

The frustration slipped away from John's face into infinite softness. The Doctor wanted to drop to his knees and prostrate himself before them to be worthy of such tenderness as what sat in John's eyes. Yet his legs locked and kept him paralyzed, unable to move forward; unable to retreat. 

Rose stood, abandoning her empty teacup. "Doctor." 

The Doctor looked at her helplessly. "I'm a very dense man. Please spell this all out for me," he pleaded. 

Practically before the Doctor finished speaking, John jumped in. "We built a life together in Pete's World, Doctor." 

Rose continued without missing a beat, "And now that we're here, we'd like to keep building one. With you." 

The Doctor's hearts seized for a moment; possibly the longest moment he'd experienced in... Well. 

Apprehension choked the air around them as they waited on his response. Would they keep waiting forever, suspended in this deplorable atmosphere of tension? Dare he ask them to? 

Did he want them to? 

"Are you saying you're in love with me?" 

The words coalesced into a presence all on their own. It draped itself about his shoulders and held tight, short of suffocating. He'd never considered himself worthy of Rose's love. In fact, he deemed himself far less worthy now he’d fractured himself into pieces by his decision to leave her. He’d loved and lost people centuries before the birth of Rose Tyler. And unless her life proved as infinite as the Vortex, he could undoubtedly come to love people once she passed from existence. However, she'd been the one he regretted most because he'd never allowed himself to be the sort of man who would say the words she deserved to hear. 

And he still couldn't bring himself to say them aloud. "I can't give you all of myself. Rose. John. It’s not who I am."

Rose leaned forward to touch his cheek. "There are going to be people who move in and out of your life, Doctor. We've never been blind to it, and we'd never put a stop to it. Your hearts are too large to keep them to yourself. Just, if you can, please put aside one corner for the two of us while we're with you."

"We'll keep it well," John promised. 

Fate infrequently conspired to offer the Doctor what he desperately wanted without countless conditions. In fact, he determined it to be stupendously rare. And first inclinations made him want to run for fear of whatever trap waited hidden in the offer, ready to strike him down. 

Perhaps, this once, he should find it in himself to be brave.

"Only a corner?" he asked. Rose and John both regarded him with wrenching hope. "I've two of them. You're both welcome to one." 

Rose flung herself into his arms. He pressed his hand to the back of her head, cradling her hair and relishing the feeling of her in his arms, gazing at her face as though she were the sunrise after an interminable night. John slinked up to his side, pressing against his elbow until he caught the Doctor's attention, in which he basked as a serpent towards heat. The Doctor glanced back and forth between them, dividing his already scattered focus, until John tilted his head at Rose. 

"You should kiss her," John murmured from beside him. "She's been waiting for you longer than I have." 

With aching, deliberate slowness, the Doctor gently pressed in, and after a thousand years of waiting, finally kissed Rose Tyler. 

Rose’s lips silently spoke of a spring morning blooming on the horizon. All his orisons and the depths of his soul come begging for acknowledgment. Rose finally answered every question delicately perched upon his tongue. A great swooping shiver ran up the length of his spine and came to rest at the base of his neck, pressing into his mind and shouting her name from all cobwebbed corners. 

He failed to repress a disapproving murmur when she pulled back, though he bit it back in the face of her joyful beam.

"I've had dreams bring us to this point. I've always woken up before we arrive," John told them. He swallowed. “Funny that.” 

The Doctor swung his attention to the other man, who darted in to follow Rose's kiss with one of his own. Hips lips were thinner, and his mouth tensed at the corners as though he fought against the urge to break away to speak. Ah, John. A brief press of the lips wasn't nearly enough. When he pulled away the Doctor did not chase him. This needed to be on their terms individually, as well as together. If they were all of them meant to be together, he and John had time enough to realize what they were to each other, since they both already understood what they were to Rose. 

John ducked in again to peck his cheek with a puckish grin. 

"I think this young lady could use a kip. And I should swing by the infirmary to see about my shoulder," John said. The Doctor realized John had clasped Rose's hand tight enough to bruise. Was he truly so terrifying? "Care to join us?" Tremulous hope shook his voice, seasoned with a generous dollop of fear. 

"You two go ahead," the Doctor said. John's face fell even as Rose frowned, and the Doctor placed gentle hands to their arms. "I'll be along. I promise." 

Rose cupped his cheek and tipped up on her toes to kiss his forehead, then nodded and made her way to the galley door. John followed close at her heels, though not before taking a last, lingering look at the Doctor. 

"If..." John paused and turned helplessly towards Rose. She caught his hand and kissed his knuckles and John took a steadying breath. "We'd wait, if you... weren't..." 

"I know." The Doctor inclined his head. "I don't suppose I'm worthy of it, but I do know."

John's mouth tipped into an uncertain smile, and he followed close on Rose's heels. 

The kitchen still smelled of ginger tea, and the Doctor carried the scent with him as he made his way through the TARDIS corridors to return to the black door. 

The AI still waited for him, confined once more to captivity. The Doctor stood before the enormous casing.

“I considered destroying you,” the Doctor told it. It offered no response, of course. Nor would it ever, with the partition back in place. “Never could bring myself to do it after I buried you down here with other relics of the Time War.” The Doctor pressed his hand to the casing, and the vaguest call of ‘exterminate’ flickered through his mind before fading into silence. “And along with all the other relics of the Time War, you deserve to be buried.” 

Too selfish to apply the same logic to himself, the Doctor stayed with the AI until he couldn’t bear to be near it a moment longer.

* * *

John tucked Rose into bed, unable to help himself from sitting by her side and simply gazing at her. Forgetting her and the Doctor—no, existing without knowledge of them, not merely forgetting them—left him as the same shiftless, angry man he’d been when he’d first sprung into existence; a man he’d escaped thanks to Rose and the relationships he’d cultivated alongside her. He’d hated being that man. 

He slipped his hand into hers and Rose rolled over to press her face into his hip. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Good as new.” Good enough to wrap a second body up in an embrace, if only the owner would arrive. “How’s your head?” he whispered. 

“Bit better,” Rose murmured. She opened a sly eye and gazed up at him. “Still sore.”

“I can nip back down to the infirmary to grab you something.”

“No. Stay.” 

John leaned down to press his lips to her temple. “Always.” 

A brusque knock sounded at the door.

“Almost always,” he amended, earning himself a small smile. 

He squeezed Rose’s hand before standing and crossing to the door. He’d been expecting the Doctor. None of them had walked away without scars this time, it seemed. 

The Doctor, never unsure, met John’s eyes the moment he opened the door. “I thought Rose might need these,” he said, handing over a couple of human-friendly analgesics. 

“Ta,” John replied. 

“May I,” the Doctor began. He paused and frowned at himself. “That is. I hoped I might come in.” 

_Stay_ , John’s mind echoed. The Doctor looked right through him, as though he’d heard it despite their minds no longer being joined. 

“Do,” John said, stepping back. “Please.” 

“I…” the Doctor paused. “If I do, I should like to…” He paused, a flash of consternation crossing his features before he muscled it down in favour of echoing a determined, “Stay.” 

“As long as you like,” John told him with a nod.

“Forever,” Rose called softly from the bed. 

The Doctor’s mouth twitched into a smile, and he stepped into their room.


	14. The Intimacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for plotless smut! (Vaginal, m/f/m sex!)

The thing of it was, the Doctor was unaccustomed to intimacy. 

(To the best of his recollection. There existed a hollow sorrow settled in the Doctor's breast, a vastness of loss beyond that which coupled with effective immortality. Did he imagine the scent of vetiver and clove and chalk clinging to the sheets in his bed? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.)

With wonderful symmetry, Rose's thighs bracketed his hips in an echo of how her hands cupped his cheeks. John nudged up behind her gazing down at the Doctor with the uncomplicated glee of a Christmas morning. The Doctor wondered, very briefly, if they had looked at Jerrick Twiste the same way before viciously discarding the thought. He'd seen those memories. They'd looked upon the other man with affection, with lust, with good cheer, but never with.

Never. 

"Never in this body?" Rose asked, drawing the Doctor's attention back to her. 

The Doctor's eyes narrowed in thought. "Not to the best of my recollection." 

John extended his hand to place above the Doctor's right heart, and the Doctor wrapped long fingers around John's hand in a silent moment of commiseration. 

"We can go at your pace," Rose promised. Gloriously naked, her body boasted of an adventurous life. Stories of scars he ached to understand. He daringly pressed his free hand against a patch of upraised skin, a roughened stretch of skin the size of his palm, sitting just above Rose's waist. She drew her hand away from his face to place atop his fingers. "Road rash. Got dragged a good half-mile by a thief trying to escape with stolen alien tech. My jacket rode up." 

The Doctor ached to kiss it, but remained effectively pinned beneath him. Instead, he twisted John's hand and pressed his lips to the other man's knuckles. John grinned, winked, and pressed his teeth to Rose's neck. She rewarded them both with a full-body shiver the Doctor felt in his cock. He tilted his hips just so, quirking a welcoming eyebrow until Rose smiled and shifted about. 

She didn't offer any condescending platitudes. They weren't needed. This close, he could hear their joined thoughts humming through their skin, and he felt confident they could parse through his as well. The physical act might pale in the face of all that extraordinary psychic coition, and yet he strained upwards regardless until she was in the position to sink down onto him. 

Conscious thought fled in the face of the pure, uncomplicated pleasure sweeping through him. Little gasps dripped from Rose's lips. She and John were Looking at him. The Doctor wanted to hide from it, and his eyes fluttered shut to avoid the sensation of being Seen. Better to sink into the physicality of it than face the feeling. The tightness gripping his prick gradually eased with every experimental twitch of his hips, each one earning another of those brilliant little sounds. 

He couldn't hide forever. Not from Rose and John. Rose's angle changed and the Doctor's eyes shot open to find John leaning them both forward until he could easily reach the Doctor's face. John stroked his long fingers across the Doctor's face. 

"There you are," he murmured. Satisfied, he leaned backwards and Rose slid up to take his place in the Doctor's field of view. 

"Stay with us," she whispered. She clenched down on him and the Doctor groaned. 

"I will," he said. He promised. He exalted. He begged. He felt like one of those twats who could recite poetry while fucking because he couldn't think of any other way to shout out the feelings overwhelming him with every moment he spent with such raw desire coursing through him. 

He caught a snippet of John's thoughts and grabbed onto them as a point upon which to focus. "Tell me," he ordered.

John grinned. "The trick to Rose Tyler is here," he slid his fingers across her wonderfully wet labia until he had two fingertips pressed to the left of her clitoris. Rose's gasp turned into a drawn out groan and she clamped down on the Doctor even as her hips began to nudge themselves into a fast-set pace. John generously allowed the Doctor to slide his fingers into the place in question. Rose wiggled a bit until she grabbed his fingers and moved them. 

"Right there," she sighed out. He pressed the spot more firmly and her entire body shook with the ensuing giggle-gasp the sensation drew up through her chest and punched out. 

John pinched her hard pebbled nipples. "If you can bring her off quickly and then back off a bit, she makes the most extraordinary sounds on her second go." 

"Just wait," Rose whined. "Your turn next." 

John pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "Can't wait." 

Neither could the Doctor.


	15. Will of the Lost Lord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for themes of dubious consent similar to those associated with of a love potions, some f/m smut (vaginal), and some m/m smut (oral).

The moment they’d materialized something struck the Doctor as off-putting about the place, though he found himself hard pressed to define what, exactly. A niggling, irritating unrest poked about the back of his mind, not unlike the nascent creep of a budding migraine. Elusive and hard to pin down, especially since no one else seemed to notice it. Nearby, John and Rose were examining the fine scarves touted by one of innumerable merchants lining the marketplace, Rose vacillating between a violent lavender offering, and a subdued indigo. She’d already draped a TARDIS blue length of cloth about her neck, in a way he privately admitted to be quite fetching.

Actually, to think about it, "That's quite a fetching shade on you, wife." No need to be circumspect any longer. He openly allowed himself such indulgences these days, and found he thoroughly enjoyed them. Loving Rose and John proved conversely both delightfully new, and lent weight by their shared history. Much like regenerating, if one were to look for an appropriate simile.

Rose smiled, sunshine bursting through the clouds, and his temporary unease slid away. "I thought purple for Donna. I'm not sure which one she’d prefer."

"Get her the ugly one! She'll love it!" John shouted from the other side of the stall, his own attention fixed on any number of brightly coloured and ultimately useless baubles and trinkets; the Doctor could practically see the gleam in his eyes as he tried to decide on the ideal (most perverse) use for all and sundry.

"Sir! None of my wares are ugly! The Lady herself selected one of my scarves for her debut not one week past." John nodded along to the rise and fall of the merchant's protests, feigning interest so poorly the Doctor wondered why he bothered.

"The lavender one, then," Rose said.

"That's what I said. The ugly one."

"Sir!"

As John fell to haggling, the Doctor noticed an elegant woman making her way down the promenade, her hips a serpentine, nigh-boneless sway. Something about her struck him as familiar, beyond the glossy maltese grey tresses and shocking cheekbones. The way she moved, perhaps, or the quirk of the left side of her mouth as she entertained some private amusement or secret flitting through her mind. The Doctor stared, unabashed in his interest, while a young man struggling with two armloads of packages monopolized her attention.

With her gaze fixated on the gentleman, she failed to notice the vehicle speeding along the lane right towards her.

The Doctor called out no warning, quickly abandoning his position to launch himself at the woman, catching her about her narrow waist and yanking her out of harm's way within seconds of the vehicle soaring by. The young man, who had abandoned his wares to jump to the rescue himself, waved at the Doctor, a relieved smile plastered across his face.

The woman appeared less sanguine.

"How dare you?!" she hissed. She slapped his chest hard enough to bruise. "You've ruined everything!"

"I saved your life," the Doctor replied, flummoxed.

"You weren't meant to." She raked sharp fingernails through her hair. " _He_ was." She threw out her arm and gestured towards the young man, now strolling blithely away from them. 

Ah, bewilderment. Such a novel feeling, especially when it lasted more than a few scant moments. "What?" 

With a wordless cry, she shook her head and spun on her heel to storm off.

* * *

"That's quite a fetching shade on you, wife." 

Rose smiled, sunshine bursting through the clouds, and his temporary unease slid away. "I thought purple for Donna. I'm not sure which one she’d prefer."

"Get her the ugly one! She'll love it!" John shouted from the other side of the stall. 

The Doctor blinked, accosted by what he imagined to be déjà vu. He wouldn't know, firsthand. Time Lords did not experience déjà vu. And yet, this seemed terribly familiar, somehow. 

"Sir! None of my wares are ugly! The Lord himself selected one of my scarves for his debut not one week past." That... didn't sound correct... 

"The lavender one, then," Rose said..

"That's what he said," the Doctor murmured before John could reply, "The ugly one."

"Sir!"

As John fell to haggling, the Doctor noticed the broad shouldered goliath making his way down the promenade, his neck mostly swallowed up by his girth. His heavy brow hung over his eyes, the hooded set of his gaze fixed entirely on the ground. When the corner of his mouth twitched up in secretive amusement, the sense of déjà vu intensified. 

The Doctor found his gaze unexpectedly caught by a young man on the other side of the promenade; a nondescript fellow, likely the world's equivalent of his mid-twenties, arms laden with purchases. 

"Doctor?" Rose said from his side. 

"Sorry, I..." The Doctor's eyes flitted between the two men. "There's something..." 

Rose saw the vehicle moments before he did, and tackled the heavyset older man out of its way, knocking the both of them to the ground at the younger man's feet. The vehicle sped past, 

"Are you all right?" the younger man gasped. He dropped his armload of packages to help Rose to her feet, earning them both a hard, hateful glare. 

"I think so, yeah," Rose assured him. She leaned down to check on the other man, still sprawled on the ground. "I—"

"Why are you lot so set on interfering?" The man clambered to his feet. 

The Doctor found himself thinking if the man even twitched towards Rose, he'd hit the ground before he noticed the Doctor’s fist swinging. And wasn't it a funny inclination, when he'd shown no signs of violence. 

The man's eyes met the Doctor's, as if he knew exactly what thoughts the Doctor entertained, and trudged off in the other direction.

* * *

"That's quite a fetching—" the Doctor stopped himself before the words escaped his mouth.

Rose blinked at the blue scarf. "I thought purple..." she trailed off, a pinched expression crossing her face. "John?" 

John rounded the stall to them, his own face drawn in a rictus of alarm. Not just the Doctor then. Good. 

"If I were to call one of these scarves ugly..." John said, his voice slightly raised. 

"Sir! None of my wares are ugly—!” 

“The Lady herself selected one of his scarves for her debut not one week past,” Rose finished. She frowned. “Or was it the Lord?”

John, Rose and the Doctor exchanged narrow-eyed consideration and then, as one, turned to the promenade.

There came no glossy-haired lady, nor muscle-bound brick shithouse. Instead a young girl, likely no older than sixteen human years, slipping down the street in a simple white shift, wine red hair pulled into a tight braid over her shoulder, her pale cheeks slightly flushed from the blazing sun overhead. She glared pointedly at their tight knot of bodies with such ferocity she barely seemed to care about the vehicle speeding her way. 

John twitched. The Doctor clamped down on his arm. 

The young man, ignored by all four of them, sailed out into the street and caught the girl up in his arms, swinging her to safety only a few feet before them. 

Her glare disappeared immediately. "You..."

"Are you all right?" he asked, his voice weighted with sincere concern. 

"I am," she whispered. She cupped his cheek. "My name is Darivya." 

_Darivya_. 

Oh, yes. The Doctor knew the name. 

Suddenly, the unsettling feeling hounding his last few minutes solidified in his gut. Déjà vu wasn’t the answer. They’d been caught in a chronic hysteresis. Easy enough to compare to his time in his confessional dial and allowed himself a momentary shudder; he refused to allow them to be trapped here for untold billions of years. 

If the pattern of the loop had been set, they should have returned to the same moment. The young man catching Darivya up out of the way of her impending demise set their course astray. And yet he remembered waking up and enjoying a mutually wonderful lie-in before they responded to a call for help.

“I’m Enoux,” the young man told her, setting her to rights. Darivya grinned at him, the expression abruptly vanishing the moment he turned to face the Doctor, Rose, and John. “Did any of you happen to note the registration ID on the speeder? Such recklessness should be reported.” 

Darivya’s glare reemerged. “Don’t you want to make sure I’m all right?” 

Enoux blinked and returned his attention to her. “I assumed… You’re standing. It passed a fair distance by you.”

Darivya’s lips pursed. “And you don’t feel the need to offer to escort me home?” 

“I… could, I suppose,” Enoux replied. "If you really need me to?"

Darivya glowered and pushed away from him, storming up to the Doctor, hand accusatorily. “You…” She paused, her finger a hairsbreadth from his chest. Her glare vanished, returning her face to its obviously deceptive mask of sweetness. “You’re the Doctor. You found my beacon.” She splayed her hands in the traditional greeting.

“And you,” the Doctor said, “Are the Lost Lord.” The only Time Lord to have been uncounted among the participants in the Time War, given she disappeared before hostilities commenced. Gallifrey counted her disappearance among their great mysteries for many years; how extraordinarily unfathomable seeing her here and now, on this small planet of little consequence. 

“Lost? I’m not lost.” She glanced towards Enoux, already crossing back to collect his abandoned parcels from where they’d fallen. “I’m exactly where I need to be. But I do require assistance.” 

A certain gleam of madness overtook her eyes, flitting through her gaze and gone whipcrack-quick. It made the Doctor's stomach plummet towards his feet. 

"Rose, John," the Doctor murmured from the side of his mouth. They both snapped to attention. "Why don't you see young Enoux home." 

"Doctor," Rose said, obviously uncertain. 

"No need," Darivya said. "It doesn't matter if he arrives safely or not."

"Right," the Doctor said, slowly.

"All the same," John jumped in, grabbing Rose's hand. "Might do to make sure." They exchanged a nigh-indecipherable look the Doctor had come to associate with their time in Torchwood; one saying 'follow my lead.' Rose's gaze flickered to the Doctor, and he tried to emulate it to the best of his ability. 

He knew when she finally agreed by the slump of her shoulders, followed quickly by, "It's been an enormously challenging day. We should make sure _everyone_ ," she pinned the Doctor with a particular glare he only ever associated with her worrying over him, "makes it home safely."

They checked for oncoming traffic and jogged over to Enoux, who regarded them both with benign puzzlement, yet offered no objection when John scooped up a few of his packages. 

"What do you need, then?" the Doctor asked, returning his full attention to Darivya. 

Darivya smiled, an expansive, sweet expression evincing the false youth of her face. "Let me show you."

* * *

The grand estate looming over the otherwise unremarkable township hadn’t drawn the Doctor’s interest when they’d arrived. He’d chalked it up to the local nobility showing off the size of their holdings, and it seemed he wasn’t wrong. 

"You've done well for yourself here," the Doctor commented as Darivya led him up the steps. A couple of burly guards bowed to her, one of them greeting her as ‘Lady,’ which the Doctor suspected wasn’t merely an honourific. 

"With all the times the timeline has been reset, one does pick up a few tricks," she responded to his unasked question, read from his face via the small twitch of his brow.

“And how many times has it been reset?” the Doctor demanded. 

“I doubt you require the exact number.” The hallways were lavishly decorated, even to one unfamiliar with local customs. Water poured down the sculptured walls, a direct contrast to the desert outside. The unnatural waterfall ran down the entire length of the hallway, filling the air with the calming sound of trickling water. It did little to settle his nerves; being trapped within another Time Lord’s machinations tended to make one jumpy.

“And they’re all centred around that young man, I assume,” the Doctor muttered. 

Darivya’s steps faltered. She recovered quickly. “Enoux,” she sighed out his name. “Yes. I met him when I first arrived on this planet and he saved my life. In exactly the circumstances you witnessed, actually, though we’ve played it out a fair few times since then.” She turned a radiant smile on the Doctor. “The moment he pulled me into his arms I understood where I belonged for the first time since leaving Gallifrey. I only need to find the right circumstances to make it happen. 

"I love him," Darivya continued, "So tenderly. The moment he saved me, I saw our timelines intertwining, golden and perfect, for always. We're meant to be together. I feel it in all meaningful parts of me. We simply haven't had our chance, Doctor. He always walks away. Once, just once, I need him to stay." 

"It's his choice to walk away, Darivya. You must respect it, regardless of a potential timeline." The Doctor ached for her; he truly did. He knew the beauty of seeing a potential timeline, and the agony of having it ripped away.

(An ache for acknowledgement strained at the back of his mind, throbbing out the name _Clara_...). 

"No, it's not his choice. It's mine," Darivya corrected gently, snapping his attention back to her. She took his hand, squeezed gently, and continued onwards. "I only need to find the right moment. The right body, the right glance, the right touch. And we can be together." 

"Darivya," the Doctor sighed after her, quickening his steps to fall into line with her. "What you're talking about is exploring thousands, possibly millions of timelines. There could be only one in an infinite number which results in him remaining with you."

"Yes," Darivya agreed. 

They reached the end of the hallway, a grand door standing tall before them. Behind the thick frosted glass panes, flickering lights managed to barely shine through, peeking out as small lamps obscured by pea soup fog. Darivya placed her palm against the glass, activating a biosensor which swirled around her palm and flickered twice before the biometrically sealed door slid open with a hiss of atmosphere. 

Darivya coaxed him inside with a welcoming smile. 

"It took me some time to figure out the particulars," she told him, "I finally managed."

Blood fled from the Doctor's face as he beheld the monstrosity before him. What remained of a TARDIS stood propped against the wall, it's doors flung open and countless cables buried in its depths powering an nearly inconceivably enormous machine obviously cannibalized from her heart. 

"In ninety-six thousand, seven hundred and twenty-two iterations, I haven't found the right moment. But I will."

"This..." the Doctor began. 

"A probability extruder," Darivya finished. "With it, I can reset the history of this planet until I find the exact combination to bring my timeline together with his." She grinned, pride shining in her eyes. "It took me a millennium to build. Centuries to perfect. I've created and recreated our moment in perpetuum, and each time it's more wonderful than the first." She chuckled, then amended with a fond smile, "Well. Save the last few. You and your friends really have a way of interrupting things." 

"We have made a habit of it," the Doctor agreed, his voice a low whisper as he beheld the device before him. Darivya’s reputation preceded her and appeared to have been well-earned. Gallifrey remembered Darivya as chiefest intellect among the Disciples of Omega, all of them keen minds able to engineer dreams and make them realities. Her loss devastated them during the Time War. 

"It's our privilege, as Time Lords, to cultivate an ideal presentation of time. I'm simply in search of what the ideal means for me." She patted his arm and crossed to the device. The other TARDIS groaned in agony as she fiddled with a few switches. "This brings me to why I need your help.

"It might take a million tries before I finally get to him." Her eyes shuttered with grief. "And I'm tired of waiting. If you assist me with the necessary configurations to finetune it, I can finally create the perfect circumstance to bring us together. I'm so close to him. I can feel it in my hearts." She pressed a hand against her chest. “I knew if I found another Time Lord, they could help me. And to find you in particular, Doctor—there are no words. You're perfect for what I need.”

"This cannot go on," the Doctor said.

Darivya turned a cold eye on him. "You’ll find it can." 

"You've cobbled together the worst perversion of our technology I have ever seen," the Doctor told her, finally able to find the words. Even the Master's paradox machine hadn't felt as utterly _wrong_. It wasn't merely the sad psychic calls of the mutilated TARDIS, but Darivya’s ability to trap time itself within the unending sequence of events. 

During a visit, Donna showed him a video of two young people stretching rubber bands about a watermelon until the pressure intensified to the point of explosion. The extruder recreated the same phenomenon at a specific point in time. He was shocked the extruder lasted as long as it had; if she kept pressing time to its limits in such a way, the device would implode under the force of its own power. "This must end, Darivya."

"No," Darivya replied, simply. "You _will_ help me with the necessary configurations to keep the extruder running until Enoux and I can be together." 

"There is nothing you can threaten me with that would induce me to help you."

"I don't need to threaten you, Doctor," Darivya told him. "Don't you understand? You responded to the beacon. The beacon _I_ sent out. You will continue to respond, because it’s who you are. If you don't help me find the right timeline, you're going to be trapped here, with me, forever." 

“I’m often called a stupid man, Darivya, but I’m not imperceptive. I noticed the loop after only a handful of iterations. Even should you restart it again, it won’t take me long to realize what’s going on and avoid this all together.” 

“A handful?” Darivya chuckled. “Is that what you think?”

* * *

"Because the truth is, Doctor..."

* * *

"...we’ve had this conversation..."

* * *

"...a half-dozen times before..."

* * *

"...and the outcome will always be the same." 

Darivya levelled an apathetic glance at him as Rose and John burst into the room, his security detail close behind them. Unsurprised by their presence, Darivya lifted a hand and they backed away. 

The heavyset Time Lord offered a shallow smile. "Though next time we do this song and dance, I'd appreciate it if you would leave Enoux out of it. He's been annoyed enough." 

"He has children!" Rose protested.

Darivya nodded. "He usually does. I will support the care of them, obviously. I'm not a monster." 

"'Usually,'" the Doctor repeated. "You must understand they're not the same. Whenever you restart this loop, the odds of the same child being conceived are small enough as to be infinitesimal. You've effectively killed how many children in your hopes of this baseless desire?"

"It doesn't matter," Darivya insisted, his face a mask of bemused condescension. "They're inconsequential, Doctor."

"No life is inconsequential," the Doctor retorted, frighteningly still. 

"Theirs are, because they have no impact on me. I am a Time Lord. I control the eddies and streams of causality in this world, and I decree them to be casualties of a higher purpose." Darivya grabbed the Doctor's arm. "More children will be born. And when I eventually find the timeline in which Enoux becomes mine, I will consider them to be of consequence because they will finally matter to me." 

The Doctor stared at him, words robbed from his mouth. "That shouldn’t be how the weight of lives rests upon you." 

"They're not real lives, Doctor, because they haven't existed in a meaningful timestream as of yet." The other Time Lord favoured him with a pitying glance. "Perhaps you don't understand—"

" _I_ do not understand? I, who loved so deeply I threatened the existence of time itself to keep her alive?!" He shook off Darivya's touch. "Of course I understand. I empathize, because if I didn't I would be the universe's most profound hypocrite. I compromised every moral and ethic to which I hold myself in face of the death of one young human. If there's one thing I've pieced together about Clara it's this— _all this_ —is me. It is what I would have done for her had I the opportunity. And it drives me mad that I know it, but I can't feel it, because there's not a single part of me that remembers anything about her. _That_ is the sacrifice thrust upon me.

"Yes. I understand the desire to trespass against the laws of time in the name of love, but this? This isn't love."

Darivya regarded him with such contempt it pressed into the Doctor’s chest; a physical presence against his hearts. 

"You must not have loved her enough," he replied evenly. 

John caught him about the waist before the Doctor could offer a physical reply. Darivya reached for a lever on his accursed machine before the Doctor yanked himself out of John’s arms. 

"Thank you for the insight, Doctor," he said. "I shall remember it."

* * *

The Doctor’s glare moved between Darivya and her extruder. “I’m often called a stupid man, Darivya, but I’m not imperceptive. I noticed the loop after only a handful of iterations. Even should you restart it again, it won’t take me long to realize what’s going on and avoid this all together.” 

“A handful? Is that what you think? Because the truth is, Doctor, we’ve had this conversation a dozen times before, and the outcome will always be the same.” 

The other Time Lord cast her long golden locks over her shoulder. Her unfairly cherubic countenance barely shifted, save for a brief glance at the door. 

“What is it?” the Doctor demanded.

“Oh, usually your two friends storm through about now. I’m surprised they’ve been delayed. They’re usually prompt.” She offered a shallow smile. "Why don't I give you time to consider things." Darivya turned her back to him.

"Not going to imprison me?" the Doctor demanded.

"I already have," she replied, dismissive.

He stared at her back, willing her to face him, yet remained unsatisfied. Content to ignore him by fiddling with the controls, she cast not even a spare sideways glance in his direction. Finally, the Doctor showed himself out of the room, insurmountably irritated. 

The thing of it was, she wasn't _wrong_. They were trapped, for all intents and purposes, until he got his hands on the extruder and ended the loop. Judging from the imposing security measures protecting it, he doubted she'd joyfully allow him access without reassurance he would help her with whatever settings she decided needed to be changed in order to see her demented little fantasy through.

Hallways which felt expansive earlier now pressed in around him as he made his way through them. Darivya housed the extruder in her private chamber, true, yet perhaps if he found the power source, he might be able to cut it all off at the legs. (More a pipe dream than he would admit; she undoubtedly sourced her TARDIS' core to keep the extruder running, to ensure such sabotage would be impossible).

He ducked his way in and out of several rooms, each time confronted by lavish furnishings and impersonal decor, and eventually turned down a hallway to see two exceptionally beefy specimens of her security detail standing before a doorway.

They appeared unconcerned by his approach, even when he reached for the doorknob. It was not biometrically sealed, nor conventionally locked, and when the Doctor pushed it open the guards merely shifted to allow him in unhindered. They weren't supposed to keep anyone out, then. Perhaps, then, they were supposed to be keeping something in?

The nondescript decor of the room failed to catch his interest when he opened the door and spotted the man standing at the lone window. Broad, and of a height with the Doctor with cool ochre-brown skin and flat features. An irritated glare of severe condescension sat naturally upon his face, which only intensified when he saw the Doctor standing in the doorway.

"Another idiot stumbles into this unending hell, and of course it had to be you," the man said.

The Doctor's face contorted in shock. "Rassilon?"

* * *

Like most of the nearby occupants, Enoux moulded his home into the cliffs surrounding the town, using the slope and shape of the rock to create a natural flow and welcoming air. The technology of the world allowed for three-dimensional photorealistic holographics which crowded the front hallway in cheerful displays of family and friends.

Enoux called out a brief greeting, happily returned by a small chorus of voices bounding through small tunnels burrowed into the walls.

"My children," he said with a proud smile.

"How many do you have?" Rose asked politely, peering at one of the holographs. Five older children crowded around a beaming mother holding a new baby, Enoux grinning at her side.

"Too many sometimes, it feels," he laughed. "I can’t imagine how my parents managed. I'm the eighth of fifteen."

He beckoned them through to the kitchen and promptly sat them down with a tart, citrus-scented drink tasting of tamarind and lime.

"My parents were part of the resettlement efforts after the war," he continued, setting to the task of moving his purchases into the cabinets. "They were given a stipend for each child, and decided to just keep going." He grinned. "It overwhelmed Theros when we were fastened. She only has four sisters."

Rose's brow furrowed; the Doctor hadn't said anything about a war. Certainly not one which would've taken place in Enoux's lifetime.

"The war?" John latched onto it as well, even as he began perusing the groceries, eyes alighting on a jar of preserves. "What war?"

"A minor border skirmish, started over a small plot of unceded territory. My parents always said it was a miracle they'd met at all, considering both of them were on opposite sides of the border."

"How did they meet, then?" Rose asked, enthralled.

"They were introduced by a professional matchmaker. My grandparents insisted. They were all the rage before the war began, and afterwards, as they were trying to bulk up the population, it became almost a necessity."

He turned to the last of the bags, and blinked as John hurriedly stuffed the preserves back behind him. Rose withheld a sigh. All these years, and she still couldn't take him anywhere.

"Soooooo..." John stepped away and began gesticulating, probably to detract attention from the now-open jar, "There's a war of which there's no record, an anonymous matchmaker who's introduced your parents, they're given money to settle in exactly the right place at the right time—"

"What do you mean?" Enoux asked.

"Just. Speculating," John assured him, eyes wide in an incredibly obvious tell to anyone paying even the meagrest amount of attention. "Only speculating."

Speculating about what? Rose wanted to ask, and only bit back the question in lieu of their blithely unenlightened audience. They’d certainly stumbled upon strange goings on; something to do with the Lost Lord and the nagging feeling, from the moment they'd stepped out of the TARDIS to when they'd met Enoux, she'd experienced it all before.

"Have you met Darivya before today?" John asked. 

Enoux shrugged. "The Lady? No. My family is hardly wealthy enough to travel in her circles." She obviously enjoyed a considerable amount of wealth; from the fine cut of her clothing to the elegant jewelry adorning her skin and healthy roundness to her cheeks. 

How many times had he been in the loop, Rose wondered. How many times had she? If this all felt passingly familiar, who knew how long they'd been on this planet—with no way to tell, years might have passed. Were they able to detect their part in the loop because of their shared connection to time? Enoux seemed blissfully ignorant of the situation; she hoped he stayed that way. 

Rose's nose wrinkled as a small insect buzzed around her, effortlessly dodging the lazy hand she waved to shoo it away. The thing persisted; only the size of her pinky nail and as relentless as any Judoon. Another soon joined it, and Rose ducked backwards as one dove for her face.

"Sorry," Enoux muttered, irritation writ large in the furrow of his brow as a handful more swarmed into the kitchen. "They've been impossible to get rid of." 

"What are they?" Rose demanded. 

"Annoying," he quipped, obviously irritated. "And next to impossible to kill." 

John's eyes narrowed as one blew past his face. Rose waved her hand again, trying to banish the annoying little insect. Her hand connected with it for only a moment and a sharp pain stabbed into the meat of her palm, as though someone jabbed a half-molten needle right through her skin. 

" _Fucking hell!_ " She whipped her hand back and stuck it into her armpit, wheezing out a hard curse as a line of liquid pain raced up her forearm towards her elbow. Her jaw clenched so hard she barely fought down a single breath let alone screamed out her anguish. 

John jumped forward and with a swift movement upended what remained of her juice and slammed the empty glass down, trapping the insect inside it. 

"Let me see!" he ordered, grabbing her wrist to tug it out. All the strength fled from her arm, leaving it half-crippled and useless as the muscles twitched uncontrollably towards atrophy. "Rose, Rose, Rose," he chanted. He pressed his thumb down into a small red spot below Rose's thumb and she shrieked, ruinous, awful pain lighting up every nerve between her palm and her bicep.

"What is it?" Enoux demanded. “Can I do anything?” 

John ignored him, gently easing the pressure back off. It wasn't helping. _Nothing_ was helping. _She’d rather chop off her bleeding arm then suffer this a moment longer._

"Chronomites," John told her. He released her hand to cup her cheeks and forced her to meet his eyes. "Chronomites, Rose. I know it hurts. I know. About a three and a half on the Schmidt sting pain index. It’ll last five minutes. Just five. It's temporary. I swear it won't last much longer."

John never made promises he couldn't keep. Rose clung to the knowledge, a liferaft in the sea of agony. 

John launched into a dizzying recitation of facts; his default setting whenever he felt impotent to help. She barely processed the words, only small snippets breaking through the fog sitting in her mind. _Larval reapers_ and _thrive in a paradox-rich environment_ and _symptomatic of a failing transduction barrier_ and _trying to rip apart each timeline you've ever belonged in and failing because they're not strong enough to do it_ and _worse for us because we are tuned in to forces beyond the reckoning of the average bloke_.

 _It’s one little insect, Rose,_ John’s voice rang clear in her mind. _You’re better than this little bastard._

The pain slowly receded, and John pressed a glass of cool water to her lips. When she tried to take it, her hand shook with such violence her fingers refused to close around it. The cup hit the floor, shattering and spilling water everywhere.

"Sorry," she whispered, her hoarse voice barely a whisper from a throat torn from the strain of silent screaming. 

"It's nothing," Enoux reassured her in an infinitely soft tone. He passed John another cup—this one obviously made for children—and left the kitchen to fetch a broom. 

The water tasted like a lifeline, and John cradled her hand gently in his own, pressing kiss after kiss to the still-tender skin until Rose's hand stopped trembling. 

"All right?" he asked.

Rose nodded. John pulled her into a tight embrace, tucking her head beneath his chin and giving her a peaceful moment to listen to the steady thrum of his heart. Slowly, the beat of her own, jackhammer-quick thanks to the surge of adrenaline to her system, eased to a normal rhythm and Rose finally caught her breath. A small mark on her palm remained, raised and furiously red, throbbing with her heartbeat.

“You know, they have special training on Gallifrey on how to deal with the pain of a chronomite bite, but you could teach them all a thing or two.” John clung tighter to Rose before reluctantly easing his hold. _We need to tell the Doctor about this, _John whispered into Rose’s mind. "We should go," he said aloud, grinning gormlessly Enoux's way. "Lots to do."__

__"I am sorry my hospitality is... well..." Enoux gestured helplessly._ _

__"Not at all!" John exclaimed. "This was lovely."_ _

__Rose managed to conjure up a wry smile. "Insects and all."_ _

__Face still drawn in uncertainty and deep embarrassment, Enoux showed them to the door._ _

__"Well?" Rose asked as it swung shut behind them. The pain dissipated, but she held tightly to his arm when even the memory of it threatened to overwhelm._ _

__"Chronomites," John repeated, gearing up for an explanation. "Used to be huge on Gallirey, back before the Time Lords grasped the finer points of time travel. If they're here..."_ _

__"Nothing good." Rose shivered. She'd rather hoped never to have to deal with the reapers ever again. "Let's go find the Doctor."_ _

__John nodded, grabbed her uninjured hand, and pulled her in the direction of the massive palace on the hillside looming over the town._ _

* * *

__"You've regenerated," the Doctor observed._ _

__"Obviously," Rassilon muttered._ _

__"How long?"_ _

__"How long... what? Since I've been here? I arrived one hundred and eighty-seven years ago. Or three hundred and ninety-eight iterations of this miserable time loop, depending on how you care to judge such matters. How long since you banished me from Gallifrey? Quite a bit longer."_ _

__"Did you respond to the beacon?"_ _

__"No." He seemed disinclined to elaborate. "You've doubtless been introduced to Darivya's ridiculous scheme. I imagine she brought you here to help stabilize the extruder."_ _

__"Stabilize? She only asked for my help in reconfiguring it."_ _

__"Ah. Then I assume you didn't get a decent look at it." Rassilon moved away from the window. "She has precipitated this same loop so many times her extruder is beginning to buckle under its own inertia." Made sense; time wouldn't support being manipulated in such a way indefinitely. "I would imagine she only has one, perhaps two additional iterations at best before it collapses and takes her with it." The smug gleam in Rassilon's eyes belied stubbornly impassive features. "She's at the epicentre. All this energy centred around a single individual, there's no way she'll survive it."_ _

__"I assume you've warned her."_ _

__"Why should I? After all, she's kept me locked here in perpetuum."_ _

__"You'd let her die without a word of warning?"_ _

__"I'm not a forgiving person, Doctor. You should know."_ _

__The Doctor's jaw clenched; he’d no reason to refute the words. “How many times have we had this conversation, then?”_ _

__“Surprisingly, this is the first. I can only assume because you’ve allowed yourself to be pulled into unnecessary moral theatrics when confronting her, and she’s finally grown bored of them.”_ _

__Generously ignoring the assessment, the Doctor instead decided to view Rassilon’s presence as a small blessing. Perhaps she'd be willing to listen to him if she knew her own mortality was at stake. There would be no regeneration if what Rassilon said turned out to be correct. The inertia from the constant extrusion would remove her from time and shuffle her into the oblivion of non-existence, and thanks to the manufactured probability, it wouldn't even cause a paradox. This went well beyond escaping her and freeing the planet from her interference: now he needed to save her life._ _

__“I assume you've decided to interfere," Rassilon muttered. "You've a face for determination.”_ _

__“Obviously I'm going to interfere! Did you honestly think I wouldn't?"_ _

__Rassilon rolled his eyes. "I live in hope." He rose to his feet. This regeneration appeared less physically fragile while at the same time moving slower, as if encumbered by a heavy weight pressing down on his shoulders._ _

__"Destroying the extruder is out of the question," the Doctor murmured, mostly to himself. He doubted Rassilon would prove particularly helpful. He would have to explore the instabilities. Hopefully Darivya would see reason; if she ended the loops in the present iteration, with the right configurations to keep the worst of the paradoxes at bay, they might all walk away no worse for wear._ _

__"I tried to destroy the engine the first time I arrived here. She's kept me under lock and key for every loop since." He sniffed. "I cannot tell you how irritating it is to land on this insignificant little rock and immediately be thrown into bondage."_ _

__"No, I can't imagine at all how horrible it must be to relive the same experience of captivity over and over again."_ _

__"Yes, yes, yes. Enjoy lording this over me while you can. Once I've escaped, I'm returning to Gallifrey to retake my position as President."_ _

__"A role I currently suffer. In absentia, of course."_ _

__Rassilon huffed. "Of course."_ _

__"Come with me. Help me explain to her what's at stake so we can finally break free of it," the Doctor requested._ _

__Rassilon's eyebrow twitched. "And then? When she refuses to see reason?"_ _

__"At least there will be two of us to try and argue her out of it."_ _

__Rassilon sighed, but inclined his head._ _

__The guards followed closely as they made their way back to Darivya's chambers, Rassilon apparently allowed free reign as long as he made no attempt to be contrary. A mere guard detail couldn’t stop him, regardless of his assertions of being imprisoned. He understood the loop, had to be here of his own free will, and the Doctor wondered at his game._ _

__His steps fell heavy on the floor, and the answer occurred in the space of a breath: they were in place to ensure Darivya had time to restart the loop if he moved against her. She’d proven it took only a moment, and even the worst-trained ogres were capable of offering a moment’s distraction._ _

__"How did you keep track of the amount of time you've spent here?" the Doctor asked. "All I have is some vague impression I've lived through this before..."_ _

__"I'm Rassilon, Doctor. It's a trifle."_ _

__The Doctor rolled his eyes._ _

__They returned to Darviya's chambers. She barely spared them a glance when they walked in, obsessively poring over impressive schematics for her extruder._ _

__"Doctor," she said. She paused and then, "Lord Rassilon."_ _

__"Darivya, please..."_ _

__"I know what you're going to say, Doctor," she interrupted. "And I haven't the time for it. I've managed a few basic adjustments which should take care of the stability issues. It will require me to restart the loop from a further point, but I believe this should do it."_ _

__"Further back?" the Doctor repeated._ _

__"The longest of the iterations I ran lasted a thousand years. I decided to go back to the moment of colonization, and arranged things very pleasantly for Enoux's ancestors in an attempt to find a way to cement our time together once he was born. Unfortunately, it ended with his five-times great grandmother dying of a bloody fluxx, forcing me to restart it far earlier than anticipated."_ _

__"Then you don't always go back to the same moment?"_ _

__"Ninety-six percent of the time I do. The majority of my efforts bring me back to a little over a year ago, when I first arrived. That being said, I have extensively experimented with various outcomes. I enjoy thinking of myself as his family's personal protector."_ _

__"Why not simply lock him in a room and have at him?" the Doctor demanded._ _

__"I want him to love me, not fear me," Darivya replied with a sardonic moue._ _

__"And you don't believe he'll fear you if he ever finds out about all this?"_ _

__"He'll never find out."_ _

__"Darivya, the extruder can't take another iteration of this loop," the Doctor pointed out. "Especially not one that long."_ _

__"It will, if this is the last one," she insisted._ _

__"How many times are you willing to risk your life for this?" the Doctor demanded._ _

__She smiled glibly. "As many times as it takes."_ _

__Rose and John burst through the door, full of cut-off protestations, all duly ignored as Darivya restarted the loop all over again. The last thing the Doctor caught a glimpse of was Rassilon’s face, utterly nonplussed as he considered the four of them and resigned himself to living through the loop once more._ _

* * *

__Waking up in bed next to Rose and John had become the realization of a dream he'd guiltily, secretly hoarded in quiet moments of the night and early hours after waking from the rare sleep in which he indulged. In those dreams, he would ease into consciousness wrapped around John's back, his hand splayed against Rose's stomach from where she tucked likewise into John's arms. He'd lie perfectly still as long as possible, not wanting to rouse them, until the oppressive silence became too much to bear and he’d leap up, startling them both into consciousness. They'd hurry through their morning routines as he brewed tea, and meet him in the console room to launch into their next adventure._ _

__Other mornings, reality proved itself quite, quite different. For all he rarely slept, he'd found himself making a point of it lately._ _

__John, already awake, sat with his back braced against their bookcase headboard, grinning madly and trying to hold back the odd giggle over a copy of Greene's _Elegant Universe_. Odd. The Doctor might've sworn he'd finished reading it before now. When he noticed the Doctor stirring, he reached over to comb his long fingers through the Doctor's thick grey curls, content to continue reading. The gentle scratch of John’s nails against the Doctor’s skull sent pleasant shivers down his spine, and he allowed himself the rare pleasure of it, all other cares drifting happily away. _ _

__When Rose woke a short time later, the Doctor rolled over to cover her body with his own, and kissed her into full consciousness until she was panting beneath him. Her hips twitched upwards against his, and she obligingly wiggled them until he found the angle to shift her pants off. The Doctor returned his hands to her breasts, delighting in her breathy gasps and the sensitivity of her nipples. One day, he decided, he'd devote hours to their titillation and do his utmost to bring her over through their manipulation alone._ _

__Today, he couldn't help himself from nudging her thighs apart and sliding easily into her, winning himself a choked-off moan and hands desperately scrambling for purchase against his back. He caught her hands in his own and pressed them down against her pillow. Rose winced and tore one hand away from his, but kept a tight grip on the other as he began rolling his hips. He set his now-free fingers to the task of working her clit, stroking and rubbing at it until her entire body shuddered and she whined beneath him. Despite the newness of their love-making, the frantic exploration, he found he knew exactly what to do to drive her to delicious nonsensical noises. The exact way to curl his fingers and where to place them to the left of her clit, earning himself a ragged gasp and a half-smack to his back as he applied the exact right amount of pressure to drive her wild._ _

__"Doctor," she groaned, "Doctor, Doctor, Doctor."_ _

__"Rose," he returned right before grinding the heel of his palm against her until she fluttered around his cock and came, her back arching and a throaty half-scream pulled all the way up and out of her. He followed close behind, managing a few more half-thrusts before spending inside her with a deliciously indulgent groan._ _

__When he drew himself away, John cheerfully tossed his finished book to the side of the bed and set himself to licking the Doctor's half-soft cock clean, his tongue probing every vein and crease until the Doctor needed to push him away, over-sensitive and half-pained from the loving ministrations, as much as he'd enjoyed them. John then set himself to Rose, tucking himself into the space between her thighs and laving his tongue against her until she came again, trembling her way through a quieter, second orgasm. John kissed the inside of her thigh and pulled away._ _

__"Join me in the shower?" he offered with a salacious grin._ _

__"Be right there," the Doctor and Rose replied, unintentionally in unison. They shared a look and laughed as John whisked himself up out of bed, his erection not at all hidden beneath his loose cotton pyjama pants._ _

__Rose curled into the Doctor's side, sighing out a contented breath and pressing her lips against his collar bone. He caught her hand in his own and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, surprised when she gasped in pain and pulled away. He'd forgotten her same reaction from only minutes before._ _

__"Let's see, then," he whispered._ _

__Rose offered her hand, and the Doctor examined her palm with a frown. An angry red pockmark rested below her thumb, red tendrilous veins stretching out around it. The Doctor would've called it infected—indeed, nearly septic—if he didn't know better._ _

__"Where did you get this?" he demanded, sitting up straight._ _

__"Don't know," Rose said. "Never had it when we went to bed, did I? And I don't remember anything like it from yesterday."_ _

__"Rose, this is a chronomite bite," the Doctor told her._ _

__He paused, his hand tightening on hers. He thought of her tucked into his arms, waking up next to her, John reading _The Elegant Universe_ despite the Doctor’s honest belief he'd finished his annual read-through before now. His innate understanding of all the intimate workings of Rose’s body, despite the recency of their physical intimacy. He might've made love to Rose a million times before; he knew how to make her sing. And John... John knew when to pull away after finding the exact right spot beneath the head of his prick to make the Doctor half-wild with desire. While they wouldn’t feel it as keenly as the Doctor, he'd little doubt they'd catch on eventually. All of them were keenly aware of the passage of time, and any interruptions would slowly stand out with increasing prominence until corrected._ _

__He found the concept vaguely nauseating; how many times had they been in this exact circumstance? How many times had he woken next to Rose and made love to her? How many times had John read through the drivelling prattle of string theory? Not because they consciously decided upon it, but because they’d made the decision at another point in time and were trapped to repeat it ad infinitum. "We're in a time loop."_ _

__Rose frowned. "How?"_ _

__The Doctor sprung up from the bed. "Meet me in the console room."_ _

__"Doctor," Rose said. He glanced back at her. "May want to get dressed first."_ _

__"Ah."_ _

__He rued being unable to join John in the shower. The regret brought to mind a hazy not-memory of stepping into the expansive space, slipping up behind him and wrapping his arms around John's chest. A vivid daydream of encircling John's wanting cock and biting down on his neck. If they were indeed trapped in a time loop, as the Doctor suspected, he'd once held John tightly against his chest as Rose sank to her knees before them and finished him with her mouth._ _

__This time, unfortunately, John would be left wanting. They'd have to make it up to him later._ _

__The Doctor hurriedly donned his clothes and made his way out of the room._ _

__He clearly remembered the day before; visiting Donna and Shaun, sitting through a hilariously awkward dinner as they talked around their acquaintance, Donna reluctant to straight up tell Shaun about the TARDIS and their travels. A relatively serviceable pudding (apple crumble with custard, followed by tea and gin) then a quick nip over to Limnos IV while Shaun met his mates at the pub, blissfully unaware of Donna and Rose preventing a civil war._ _

__It all ended without incident. Well. Without _significant_ incident. Twenty-Third Century Capitalism took a fairly significant blow, but one couldn't make an omelette without overthrowing a bourgeois empire built upon the exploitation of genetically modified proletariat. _ _

__None of it, from the moment they'd stepped out of the TARDIS to when they'd dropped a relatively bladdered Donna off at the end of the night, involved chronomites. Which meant Rose must've acquired the bite somewhere else. And the Doctor bet the 'somewhere else' happened to be the planet now shooting out a wildly insistent beacon beckoning them to come help._ _

__Rose and a damp-haired John joined him several minutes later, the latter frowning and put-upon, albeit fortunately understanding. Though they were significantly different men these days, they shared enough history John didn't hold it against the Doctor when intimate moments were interrupted. (The frequency of which tended towards calamitous)._ _

__"The eighth moon of Festus," the Doctor declared. "A Twenty-Ninth Century human colony which nigh-perfected the concept of organic symbiosis, and were able to use the natural structures of the planet to establish long-term sustainable settlements. Despite the fact there were no known conflicts or natural disasters or any extraterrestrial interference, they are suddenly calling out for aid. _Combined_ ," the Doctor continued, "With Rose's injury, I can only speculate how we've somehow gotten pulled into a rather aggressive time loop." _ _

__"Right," John nodded sharply, "The TARDIS can do a quick scan and locate the source of the loop, you drop Rose and I off and we’ll take care of it while you investigate the source of the beacon."_ _

__"In what universe have things ever been easy?" Rose laughed gaily._ _

__The TARDIS herself hesitated to materialize planetside, landing them with uncharacteristic shakiness._ _

__“None of the locals will understand,” the Doctor said, leading John and Rose to the door. “To them, there’ll be a persistent feeling of déjà vu, nothing more. The only reason the three of us feel anything is because we’re already used to sensing time out of sync.” He opened the door and peered out at the expansive marketplace beyond. Not too far from the TARDIS stood a merchant hawking stylish-yet-ugly scarves, save for a single TARDIS-blue offering hanging from one of the many hooks crowded into every inch of his stall. “You two begin scanning for whatever’s causing the loop. I’ll take a gander.”_ _

__“What if the loop is being caused by one of us?” Rose asked._ _

__The Doctor focused a moment, trying to recall anything after stepping out of the TARDIS. He vaguely remembered something about those scarves. A speeding car. A young woman? An old woman? A man? Whatever the divergence was, he suspected it would begin any moment._ _

__He spun and took her hand, cradling it between his own. The angry red bite thrummed to the beat of Rose’s heart._ _

__“This,” he said._ _

__John nodded along. “If we were responsible, the chronomites would already be on us. Nothing the little buggers love more than time travelers, what when we’re all practically soaked in the potential for a paradox at any moment.”_ _

__“Then until we see them, we’ll have time to figure out what’s going on,” Rose nodded. “All right.” She pulled out her sonic. “Let’s go see if we can’t track this down.”_ _

__They disappeared into the marketplace, leaving the Doctor on his own. He lingered near the scarves, a feeling of inertia keeping him routed in place as the painfully familiar sequence of events unfolded: a woman—middle-aged, this time, and slightly frumpy—a speeding vehicle, a fortunately quick intervention. Enoux, he decided, and Darivya. Of course. Little matter to recall his memories of living through it before now he knew of the existence of the loop itself._ _

__When Enoux declined the offer to walk her home yet again, Darivya turned to scan the area. (Presumably for him). Her eyes landed on the Doctor, and she smiled confidently of her victory. She threatened to keep them trapped, after all. And he wouldn’t be able to identify the loop while on the TARDIS: she existed in a state somewhat removed from the timestream while in the Vortex, and the Doctor could cheerfully spend a thousand mornings waking up in the exact manner without questioning it beyond the general confoundment at his own luck. These events, the individuality of them, were the key to realizing they’be been trapped. That and Rose’s bite, which he confidently believed to be a new aspect of the loop itself._ _

__Darivya frowned when she spotted him, and approached with furrowed brows. Hers was now a face made for frowning; heavy-browed, with deep creases to either side of a pinched mouth. Reminiscent of a caricature of Old Hollywood as presented in a deeply disrespectful biopic._ _

__“Where are your friends?” she demanded._ _

__“This has to end, Darivya,” the Doctor replied._ _

__Her eyes widened. “No.” She spun on her heel and took off, back towards her mansion and the abomination housed within._ _

* * *

__John and Rose reached the room housing the probability extruder without interruption; the guards all assigned away at the moment, presumably because Darivya believed she had nothing to worry about._ _

__“It’s about to buckle,” John said with a sweep of his sonic._ _

__Rose scanned it herself, frowning at the readings. ‘Buckle’ wasn’t a strong enough term; the thing mere inches away from imploding entirely. “The transduction barrier is failing.”_ _

__“It’s not even a proper barrier. More like a shield made to protect a small group from the paradoxes associated with looping time. I’d call it a sort of continuity shield. It’d keep memories intact, too.”_ _

__Rose found the power source and approached it, shocked when she realized the small post in the corner camouflaged the entrance to a TARDIS. Whoever put it all together absolutely gutted their ship to get the machine up and running._ _

___Probability extruder,_ a voice at the back of her head which sounded suspiciously similar to her own told her. _ _

__“Do we unplug it?” Rose asked._ _

__“Best do,” John agreed._ _

__Rose lifted her sonic, freezing at the sound of an agonized shriek from the door of the room. She and John both whipped around, and Rose’s eyes widened when she saw the woman standing in the door. Her dishevelled hair and wide-eyed stare conveyed proper madness this go ‘round. Rose knew the feeling of a Time Lady, and despite her most recent regeneration sporting myriad grey curls, Rose nonetheless recognized Darivya. _The Lost Lord_ , the Doctor’s voice echoed from the recesses of her mind. _ _

__“You can’t!” Darivya shouted. She leapt at the extruder, clamping her hands down on the controls. She wanted to start the loop over again, Rose realized. Easy as a flick of the switch. And now she knew they were onto her, she’d find a way to stop them from trying to circumvent the loop all together._ _

__“Darivya,” the Doctor’s voice echoed through the room behind her. “Stop.”_ _

__She kept her hands locked on the controls, casting a derisive glower over her shoulder. “You’ll find I can, Doctor. I can and I will do _anything_ for him. He is my universe. _I love him!_ ”_ _

__"What's his favourite colour?" the Doctor demanded, apropos of nothing._ _

__"What?" Darivya laughed out a scoff, "What's that got to do—"_ _

__"Everything!" the Doctor shouted. "You cannot love someone with whom you've never had a real conversation. You can admire them, and appreciate their aesthetics. Become _infatuated_ with the idea of them. But love? No. Love... love is not built in a moment's glance. That's lust. Desire. Imagination. Love takes time. Patience. Love is a garden you must tend to and work on, or nothing real grows. You've tended a bed of weeds, Darivya. The soil is foul. It will never produce what you want it to, and you need to accept it." His gaze flickered helplessly towards Rose and John. He failed to notice the wind blowing seeds into his own garden, yet they'd flourished despite the minimal attention he'd provided. "I know what it is to love someone to the ruin of all else, and it took scouring the memory of her from my mind to stop me. Believe me, I know what depths to which one will sink to preserve that sort of devotion. What you're feeling isn't love. You've seen one potential timeline where you might be happy with him, and decided the cost of millions of others you've sundered or will sunder was the price you were willing to pay for it."_ _

__"Of course I love him," Darivya said, her plastic smile still fixed in place. Only her eyes betrayed growing uncertainty._ _

__He stormed over to Rose. "Rose.” Her name was, and always would be, a statement. “Takes her tea with more sugar than should be legally allowed, because when she was a child her mother couldn't afford anything decent and dumped a half kilo of sugar into her cup every morning to compensate, and Rose never broke the habit. She tells people her favourite novel is _The Bell Jar_ because she wants to be taken seriously. In all honesty it's actually _Thye Bloody Chamber_. She's incapable of remembering to fish her hair out the drain in the bathroom. She's kind, and she's brave and she's one of the most compassionate souls I've ever met. _ _

__"John," the Doctor continued, whipping around. "Absolutely detests sitting still, but when Rose falls asleep on him while watching telly, he won't move for hours because he doesn't want to wake her. He's stuck his fingers into each jam jar on the TARDIS and keeps buying more for Rose and I, then forgets and sticks his fingers in those ones as well. He perpetrated a genocide, and it still haunts him—not because he regrets it, because he doesn't. He doubts he deserves Rose, or me, and strives each day to prove to us that he does since he’s worried he’ll never feel worthy." The Doctor turned towards John, catching and holding his gaze, politely ignoring the wet eyes staring back at him. "He shouldn't ever doubt it. Because he's one of the best men I've ever known._ _

__He turned back to Darivya. "That is love. Love is them dealing with me tossing and turning so much in bed neither of them gets a wink of sleep. Love is them turning up the volume on the telly when I play guitar because they're too kind to tell me to shut up. Love is forcing yourself to forget someone,” his voice cracked, “Because if you dare remember them, it might destroy the universe."_ _

__Rose slipped a hand into the Doctor's. John took the other one._ _

__"Rose's favourite colour is teal. John's is pink. And love is not a single glance and a wish. No matter how much you want it to be."_ _

__Silence followed, save for the steady whir of the extruder as the Doctor's gaze penetrated Darivya's._ _

__Darivya appeared shaken to her core; her eyes widened with every syllable dropped from the Doctor's mouth. Her lower lip trembled. The Doctor willed her to understand him and accept what he'd said, but as the uncertainty gradually faded from her eyes, replaced with determination, he figured it to be wishful thinking instead of reality._ _

__"I want what you’ve described," she whispered. "And the only way I'll get it is if I find the right timeline."_ _

__The Doctor closed his eyes and inwardly sighed. “You’ll never have it if you don’t stop this.”_ _

__“I will,” she insisted. She lunged for the extruder. “I’ll show you.”_ _

__The Doctor jumped forward, but not in time to stop her. Darivya threw her entire weight into slamming down the controls to restart the loop. For a moment, the air around them trembled, pregnant with tension and the weight of a universe worth of probabilities suspended in time._ _

__And then the buzzing commenced. Darivya reached into the sleeve of her robe, drawing out a peculiarly-curved blade with an oddly pronged end. As the buzzing grew louder, her face twisted with uncertainty._ _

__Instead of blipping out of existence, Darivya screamed as chronomites descended upon her, a swarm blowing in from all the cracks and entrances to the room, multitudes pulling themselves to life out of the extruder or appearing from the air itself. The Doctor yelled in denial and tried to grab for her, only to yank his hand back, his skin covered in red welts. He sagged against the console, not allowing himself even a whimper of pain as he tore his sonic from his inside pocket and aimed it at the writhing mass of insect carapaces._ _

__“John, Rose!” he called._ _

__They both followed his lead. Rose pulled out her sonic and aimed it at the thickest part of the swarm. For the first time, her sonic’s readings were practically indecipherable. The things vibrated with such ferocious temporal violence they existed in the past, present and future._ _

__Rose changed the setting to resonate on the frequency in which they lived in the present and aimed her rose-shaped crystal tip at the centre mass of the swarm, joining the Doctor and John in a synchronous movement._ _

__The chronomites all froze. For a long, terrible moment Rose wondered if they'd remain trapped in time, encasing Darivya in a horrifying living coffin. Then all at once, the mites fell motionless to the ground; all suspended in time, not even a twitch from any of their little bodies and Darivya either consumed or ripped out of existence—either way, gone._ _

__Rose took the Doctor’s hand to examine it. He winced at her touch, tremours running up his arm as she cradled his hand in hers, probably much more sanguine over the injury than she’d been. They would see to it in the TARDIS. For now, the pressing ache resided in his chest, as he considered the spot where Darivya had fallen._ _

__“Nothing we could’ve done,” John whispered, crowding up against the Doctor’s other arm. An echo to where they’d stood only moments ago, when the Doctor made a spectacle of himself and his love for them. Curiously, he found he wasn’t as embarrassed as he would have been in his previous regeneration(s). Love, he’d found, was always wise. No matter how unwisely expressed._ _

__“We should see to her TARDIS,” Rose said, pressing her lips to the Doctor’s knuckles._ _

__“You two take a look,” the Doctor said. He gently pulled his hand from her grip and stroked her cheek before turning and taking John’s hand for only a moment. “There’s someone who needs a seeing to.”_ _

* * *

__Rassilon was stood at the window again, staring out at the world beyond the palatial estate._ _

__“Well,” he said as the Doctor slid into the room, “I always suspected I wasn’t the only Time Lord you capable of utterly confounding. The moment you stumbled into this loop, I knew it only matter of time before you released us from it.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I doubt you require the validation of a pat on the head.”_ _

__“Pleasure to speak with you, as always,” the Doctor returned with a huff. He joined Rassilon at the window._ _

__“You must feel so mightily superior,” Rassilon continued._ _

__“Never a moment in my life.”_ _

__“You fell into the same trap as Darivya, with your little piece of fluff, and managed to escape the trap into which she fell.”_ _

__The Doctor’s breath seized in his throat. “Clara.”_ _

__“Whatever the human called itself. You fought my best efforts for four billion years, exiled me from Gallifrey, defied all our conventions, and at the end of the day you were still willing to say goodbye.” Rassilon finally turned and peered at him: the Doctor his specimen under glass._ _

__“I wasn’t willing to say goodbye,” the Doctor refuted._ _

__“No? Is that why you went back to your two abominations?”_ _

__“Don't you dare.”_ _

__“I only dare speak words the Doctor does not wish to hear. It’s as much a burden as it is a gift. Now, then,” Rassilon said, withdrawing from the Doctor’s heavy gaze, “If you’ll pardon me.” He adjusted the heavy robes draped about his shoulders. “I’ve been in this place for at least a day too long.”_ _

__The Doctor grabbed Rassilon’s arm. “You weren’t surprised to see them.” Rassilon raised an annoyed brow. “Rose and John. Rose, a woman who took the entire Vortex within her and lived to tell the tale. Certainly someone with whom you’ve acquainted yourself, even though she existed before you returned to this plane. And John is an exact copy of my former face I know you've seen. And yet you expressed zero surprise when they walked through the door. You’re unusually stoic in this regeneration, but I doubt even you could blink this much away."_ _

__"What are you suggesting?"_ _

__"Nothing. I am outright saying it: somehow, you knew about John and Rose. And it makes me wonder what you've done with the knowledge."_ _

__Rassilon's face wasn't one that naturally led to smiling; even in their brief time together, the Doctor knew it with frank honesty. Thus, the smallest quiver peaking at the side of the former President's mouth, just visible enough to express levity, appeared sinister enough to make the Doctor wonder what he'd missed._ _

__“This has been illuminating,” Rassilon said. He pulled his arm away from the Doctor’s grasp. “Enjoy your time with them, Doctor. Even those of us who are masters of its dominion can rarely say for certain how much of it remains.”_ _

__Before the Doctor responded, Rassilon removed himself from the Doctor’s sight, presumably to return to whatever craft bore him to this place, before Darivya trapped him in her machinations.._ _

__They’d managed to mostly dismantle the extruder by the time he returned. Rose finished uncoupling the power source from the unfortunate TARDIS, and only the continuity shield remained. Rose finished powering it down with a wave of her sonic. No one on the planet would be able to reconfigure it without a superior understanding of temporal physics. And the TARDIS herself would be able to rest, at last._ _

__“Shall we?” John asked, looping his hand through the Doctor’s arms._ _

__“Finally,” the Doctor agreed. They were all ready to leave this place behind. His hand still throbbed from the chronomites’ attack. A few days of recovery and it’d be back to new._ _

__For a moment, he heard the echoing wheeze of the beleaguered TARDIS, and pressed his hand to the door to wish her well. Hopefully, like her pilot, she would be able to find a small measure of peace in the oblivion created in the name of love._ _


	16. The View

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No content warnings for this one!

Rose found the Doctor perched atop the TARDIS, looking out at the galaxy. He’d enjoyed doing the same thing when they’d first met, when he’d been fragile and broken and hiding it behind bluster and anger and condescension. Rose could see through him then and she could see through him now. 

She stood in the doorway, admiring the sight of the barred spiral galaxy and the deadly peace of space. She could afford to wait for him to allow her the intrusion, after all. If he really wanted to be alone, he’d long possessed a talent for sending off his companions with affection hidden beneath waspish words. 

His fingers strummed out a tune on his guitar. _Something_ , by the Beatles she was pretty sure, though she’d never heard it sound quite as melancholic. She waited until he noticed her and the chords effortlessly changed to a much more cheerful version of _Here Comes the Sun_ before she hoisted herself up to join him. The atmospheric shell expanded to accommodate her

“Where’s John?” he asked, settling his guitar down beside him. 

“Passed out in the toy room.” 

“Wish you wouldn’t call it that,” the Doctor grouched. 

“Stop keeping all your old toys in it, then,” Rose replied easily. 

The Doctor refused to smile, but she could see the expression nevertheless lurking behind his eyes. She leaned up against him, relishing his warmth. The shield kept space’s all-consuming cold at bay, but the contact was important. And hard won. The Doctor said he hadn’t been a hugger after his regeneration, and she’d silently and profusely thanked Clara for showing him how to build trust within an embrace. Then again, anyone would be hesitant to trust after spending a thousand years building up a persona centred on lying. 

“Have you been there?” Rose asked, nodding towards the galaxy.

“Only to a single asteroid in the smallest system,” the Doctor said. 

“Will you take us there?” 

“Never in all the infinities before us.” 

Quite the proclomation from a man who loved to defy convention. She could only speculate on what must've happened to decide an entire galaxy was out of bounds. “All right.” 

His hand gripped hers hard enough to bruise, and she squeezed back even tighter. 

“I…” The Doctor paused. “I can be very cruel to others when I am in love. I’ve done harm in its name, sometimes without even realizing it. Sometimes because I _refused_ to realize it.” Martha, Rose thought. John had frequently spoken of Martha and all his regrets regarding the Woman Who Walked The Earth. They should look in on her and Mick, see how they’d gotten on. “I shouldn’t like to do you or John harm.”

“Is it something you worry about?” 

“Endlessly.”

Rose pressed closer against him, and tucked her fingers into his. He had hurt her, once, back when she’d been too young to appreciate the weight of his immortality and the price he paid for it. She’d resented his abandonment and _hated_ that he’d gone chasing after some posh French courtesan when Rose had been ready to throw herself into his arms the moment he said the word. She fancied herself wiser now, though her longevity was laughable compared to his. No one could tie the Doctor to them forever; but they could hope to have a small parcel of his devotion while he lived with them. He’d said it himself: he had two hearts, and they were welcome to one. And Rose was confident enough in their place that they could be generous towards whomever happened to possess the other, whether it occurred in a single moment or spanned multiple lifetimes.

“You’re not the only who worries.” The words tumbled out of her before he finished speaking. “Things weren’t easy for John and I at first, either. I wanted him to be you, and he wanted me to want him to be himself. And, you know, if I hadn’t spent all that time with you I’m not sure I could have loved him the way he deserved. Not because he reminded me of you, but because being with you taught me that nothing that truly matters comes easy.” _Love is a garden_ he’d said. Her own garden was well-tended and verdant, helped along by the Doctor and John and all the seeds planted by the people she’d loved before meeting them. “We’ll fight. Of course we will. Mum and Pete had some spectacular rows. He spent more than one night on our couch because when Mum got… _gets_ angry her temper gets the better of her and she’ll say things she doesn’t mean. I can be the same way. And John…” She huffed out a frustrated laugh. “...John’s worse than both of us combined, when he gets his back up about something. We’re not expecting this to be perfect, Doctor, because perfect things are never real.

“But perfect or not, we’re here. And we love you.” 

He sat in contemplation of the words, staring out at the distant galaxy. She wondered if he realized he was playing with his wedding rings. She loved that he wore symbols of devotion, even if it wasn’t symbolic of her and John. They’d eventually find their own symbols. 

“I… I think I’m ready to tell you about River,” the Doctor finally whispered. 

It was a conversation long overdue.

“I want to hear about her,” Rose assured him. 

He wrapped a bony arm around her shoulders. “It’s bound to end in a museum, but it really begins with my friends Amy and Rory…”


	17. With a Bang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for explicit sex (frottage, vaginal fingering) and consensual drug use, and depictions of asphyxiation. 
> 
> Next week will be the final updates: Wednesday I'll be posting the mini chapter, and Sunday I'll be posting the last two-parter "season finale" and the epilogue. Thank you to everyone who's been following me on this journey!

John's irregular bouts of insomnia haunted him since his eighth night of existence. Usually, to get ahead of them, Rose would brew him a soft pot of herbal tea, and gently tease an equally soft orgasm out of him before they took themselves to bed, lulling him down before he buried himself too deep in his own head to sleep. John rather enjoyed Rose knowing him well enough to care for his needs before he became aware of them himself. 

Other nights, he found himself wandering the TARDIS, glassy-eyed from want of slumber, routine pulling him zombie-like from room to room, until he found a corner in which to focus his occupiable mind and eventually pass out. He usually woke up in bed next to Rose again, which he'd thought a kindness on the part of the TARDIS until, one night, he'd half-woken to find the Doctor, with his impressive muscle control, ferrying him back to bed and tucking him in next to their wife, his eyes impossibly soft. Rose and John never made the mistake of thinking the Doctor to be a frail old man. They knew better. All the hints were there, in the force of his personality and the careful coordination of his movements; the simple-minded rarely chose to look past the veneer of supposed fragility. John hoped to be the least of the burdens the Doctor could shoulder.

And then there were nights such as this, where even the remotest corners of the TARDIS offered no succor. John’s wandering brought him to the console room, where he found himself unsurprised to see the Doctor standing at his blackboard, an impressive series of equations written out as he played with different solutions to Riemann Hypothesis. John hopped up the stairs to peek at his progress, pleased the Doctor's intermittent sleep patterns might give some occupation to this otherwise difficult night.

“Could carry the three,” he suggested. 

The Doctor scoffed wildly. “ _Carry the three?!_ ” he repeated in absolute baffled outrage, rounding on John. It took him a wonderfully long moment to notice John’s grin and realize he was taking the piss. His wrath turned to something altogether softer and he shook his head fondly. 

John watched as he allowed himself another long moment to ponder the problem before setting down his chalk and turning the full brunt of his attention on John himself. Flattered and intimidated to be the subject of such weighty focus, John almost wanted to preen. 

“Trouble sleeping, then,” the Doctor said. Not a question. He’d become well acquainted with John’s habits by now. 

“Been thinking about what you said to Darivya,” John admitted. 

“Oh?” 

“You told Darivya I was one of the best men you’d ever met.”

“I did.”

“Did you mean it?”

“I’m not in the habit of saying things I don’t mean.”

“Bollocks. You and I are both terrible liars.” 

The Doctor slowly nodded and returned his attention to the equation. An easy quiet swept into the limited space between them, taking up residence and settling in for a long stay. John acknowledged it with a furrow of his brow. Never been one for silence, him. Always felt the prattling desire to fill it, which he’d figured to be one of those qualities he’d inherited from both the Doctor and Donna compounded to a ridiculous extreme. 

He let it go on for twenty-four seconds before he couldn’t stand it any longer. 

“It is a bit odd, isn’t it?” John asked, breaking the fragile silence. It still lingered around them, filled with spider-web cracks, waiting to be shattered completely.

“Odd,” the Doctor repeated absently, still considering his chalkboard.

“Well,” John continued. The silence gave up and resigned itself back to the empty corridors. “Rose. She’s been in love with you pretty much since the beginning. But me? Us? _This?_ ” He gestured in the space between them. “Unchartered territory.” He turned eyes on the ground. “I didn’t understand at first. You love her. If you thought me dangerous, why leave me in her care? Took me a while to figure it out. If you _actually_ considered me too dangerous to keep around, you never would’ve risked her wellbeing. You’d’ve done me the way you did the Family if you thought there was the smallest chance of me hurting her.”

“Quite a few postulations,” the Doctor allowed, hesitant to agree. No matter they’d seen into one another’s minds when they were married. Maybe he just wanted to see where John was going with it.

“I never would,” John finally said, “Hurt her, I mean.”

“I’ve always known that,” the Doctor said.

Hesitantly, John reached out to take the Doctor’s hand. It never fit quite the same way Rose’s did. His fingers were longer, his bones more prominent. After a moment, the Doctor shifted the grip around until their hands aligned. Not effortlessly, the way the Doctor and Rose always fit. Excellent in its own way all the same.

“I never want to hurt you, either.”

With a gentle tug, the Doctor pulled John into his arms. They were both bony specimens, and it took a little rearranging, two puzzle pieces shifting about in order to fit. And how glorious they fit together at all.

“I think I want to kiss you now,” John told him, surprised by his own hesitance, despite himself. Until now, Rose helped them along as a buffer between them, nudging them towards their own intimacy. It had to be strange for the Doctor that he’d once shared John’s face, no matter how long ago. Their intimacies could be measured in moments spent with Rose. John suddenly found himself greedy for this on its own merits.

Before he could, the Doctor pressed his lips to John’s, gentle and sure. Certain. Doubtless. 

“Odd,” the Doctor repeated again, pulling back. Devastation welled in John’s throat for only a moment before the Doctor continued, “No. Not at all. Perhaps a bit arrogant on my end. Never odd.”

“Arrogant,” John chuckled.

“Isn’t it? In its own way.”

John kissed him again, sagging slightly as exhaustion began to catch up to him. The Doctor smiled into his mouth and tightened his arms around John’s waist.

“Let’s get you to bed,” he said, soft. John loved it when the Doctor allowed himself to be soft. John loved the Doctor. How extraordinary.

“Come with me?”

The Doctor nodded. “If you like.”

“I do,” John insisted. “I… I love...” He’d never found it hard to say the words to Rose. In every meaningful way they’d been the first proper thing he’d ever said to her. And if nothing else, the one thing he’d learned was it always bore saying. “I love you.”

The Doctor’s grinned brighter than a quasar. “John. _My_ John.”

“Yours and Rose’s,” John agreed. As long as they’d have him. And, all things considered, it could well be a very, very long time.

* * *

Rose sat up with an abortive gasp of surprise as John and the Doctor crashed through the door to their room, gawping as they tumbled backwards, missing the bed by a full three feet and dumping themselves to the floor in a cumbrous tangle of limbs. 

"Zippers!" John gasped, bucking his hips upwards and grinding against the Doctor's. "Much more practical than buttons. Easier to undo. Big fan of zippers, me." 

"If you bite the spot behind his left ear, he'll stop talking," Rose offered helpfully from the bed.

"I appreciate his talking," the Doctor said. He gasped as John gave up on the waistcoat and instead shoved his hand down the Doctor's trousers. John's long fingers circled his cock and the Doctor groaned against John's collarbone. John continued babbling, the words quite beyond the Doctor's ken.

"So do I," Rose agreed warmly with a certain loving exasperation which always crept into her tone when she talked about either of them. She never wanted to silence him, only thrilled in knowing she could be distracting enough to do it.

The Doctor chanced a look at her and took a moment to properly adore the sight of her tongue creeping out the corner of her mouth. The diversion proved short-lived as John flexed his wrist in a Very Particular Way and all cognizant thought flew out the Doctor's brain and grey matter turned to mush. His hips rocked upwards, quite outside of his control. John cradled the Doctor's thigh between his hips and began bucking up to meet him, apparently thrilled at the friction. 

"Gideon Sundback, proper genius. Separable fastener takes much too long to say, though. Zipper, now there's a quick word. Mimics the sound, too. I love a good onomatopoeia. Zip. Ziiiiiiiip. Ziiii—"

The Doctor gave up and bit the spot Rose suggested, resulting in an immediate and drawn out whine, an exhale of breath threading itself in the air around them and settled down like a blanket, stoking the Doctor's desire. John's hand stilled on the Doctor's cock, and he shuddered out a string of punched-out breaths as the Doctor continued to work the skin between his teeth. The Doctor had never seen John both awake and completely motionless in the entirety of their time together, and his new stillness presented a revelation to the Doctor. The other man remained in motion constantly, waving his hands while speaking or bouncing about in whatever new excitement tickled his fancy. Even when they'd been to bed together before, John existed in a state of enthusiastic willingness to please and marvellously thorough exploration. A remarkably enticing enw side to him. A picture the Doctor wanted to frame and keep in his mind as he did the taste of Rose upon his lips. 

Speaking of. 

"Rose, my darling," he called out. While she seemed content to sit and watch from the bed through hooded eyes, letting them have their moment, he tasted her arousal soaking the air. 

"Hmm?" 

"Would you please come help me undress our husband?" 

Rose grinned and slid off the bed. 

It went much quicker with two, even as the Doctor released John from the unexpected captivation of The Spot. Six hands quickly became even less effective than four—too many cooks in the kitchen? What would be the erotic equivalent? He suspected John would have something to say on the matter and resolved to not mention it in his husband's hearing when there were better things to occupy their mouths. With no little effort and imagination they finally managed to divest John of his vest shirt and pyjama pants. Laid bare, the Doctor pushed himself up onto his elbows and took a moment to thoroughly appreciate the sight of him. 

"Arrogant, you said," John whispered, eyes suddenly unsure. The Doctor ached to erase the uncertainty. "Because this face once belonged to you." 

"And now it's all yours," the Doctor assured him. He cupped John's chin and stroked his thumb across the sharp planes of his cheekbone. Rose began undoing the wretched buttons and pulled away both his waistcoat and jacket. Terribly helpful, their wife. 

She chuckled. He'd said the words aloud, then. 

John pulled his hand out of the Doctor's trousers and proceeded to help strip him as well. Once they were both naked, it took all the Doctor’s willpower not to immediately begin thrusting his prick against John's. 

Then again, why stop himself?

Rose shifted up and around them to stretch out, threading her fingers into John's spectacular hair and petting it back and away from his face as he bucked upwards. 

"Doct... Rose... I..." 

"That's all of us," Rose agreed cheekily. Minx. The Doctor would enjoy giving her such a paddling as soon as what remained of his brain stopped its attempt to escape via his cock. 

John silently agreed, arching up to press a blazing kiss to Rose's lips, which he broke off with a choked groan as the Doctor frotted down harder against him. 

The Doctor drank the sinful sounds tripping from John's lips as he came, swallowing them and letting them linger like particularly beautiful music anchored on the tip of his tongue. The Doctor ached to open John up properly with his fingers and tongue, driving all sense from him and reducing him to a wordless quiver of lust. And he would. Later. Because the orgasmic flood of sensation driving down his back to his groin as John gathered enough of his wits to crane his neck and kiss the Doctor's throat would not be halted. 

The Doctor slumped down atop John, a complementarily sweaty mess. Rose continued running loving fingers through John's hair, and reached out with her unoccupied hand to grab the Doctor's own and squeeze tight, completing their wonderful little circuit. She'd been left unsatisfied. They'd have to see to her; wouldn't do for their amazing wife to be left wanting. 

Wonderfully intuitive, Rose stretched forward and kissed the thoughts from the Doctor's head. John tilted his head up to bite her breast through her charmeuse camisole and Rose gasped. They were both spent, at once lovedrunk and practically useless. Fortunately, the Doctor doubted it would take more than a few careful nudges to take care of Rose’s wonderfully intense arousal. 

He decided to test the hypothesis by pushing on her left shoulder, knocking her off balance and sending her toppling to the floor. She giggled right up until John followed her over and pulled down her pyjama top to latch his mouth to her nipple. The Doctor stretched forward to slip his hand into her knickers. Deliciously wet. The Doctor’s mouth watered at the idea of licking into her, though from the stuttered breaths gasping out of her, Rose was too agonizingly sensitive to appreciate the efforts. (She’d once kicked him in the head when he’d attempted it in the past, and he remained uncertain as to whether it had been an accident or not). Right now, she needed something to clench down upon, and he happily provided his fingers for the effort.

Small puffs of breath dripping from her lips in a jumble of consonants, and when he pressed his thumb to the left of her clit she came with a shriek. She rode his fingers with wanton desperation until, wrung out, she slumped to the floor beneath John. 

The Doctor happily tucked his fingers into his own mouth to clean them off, listening with satisfied amusement as John began complaining about Rose’s weight crushed against his face. Funny, really, when the Doctor was still mostly splayed atop him from chest to toes.

“We should go dancing,” John murmured at length. 

“We just did,” the Doctor replied.

“Real dancing. In the morning,” Rose agreed.

Moving to the bed would have been insurmountable, and fortunately the floor offered an acceptable alternative. The TARDIS obligingly heated it to the perfect temperature to keep them all comfortable, with enough give none of them minded the lack of mattress. 

Pressed together, the Doctor willingly surrendered to sleep, John and Rose doubtlessly close behind him.

* * *

‘Dancing’ ended up being at a speakeasy in 1920s Chicago, the air filled with a heady mix of jazz and the thrill of consuming bootlegged liquor. The TARDIS chose it, and presented her with a beautifully beaded gown and matching emerald kitten heels from the wardrobe room, perfect for being swept about the room. The Doctor and John, both kitted up in smart matching suits, practically glowed when she joined them. 

An easily overlooked door down a dingy back alleyway marked the entrance to the speakeasy. The Doctor offered a complicated series of knocks—(“oh, I met the owner back in my scarf and jelly babies days…”)—and with little fanfare they were admitted to a surprisingly expansive ballroom, a proper piano set up in the corner and a bar lining the far wall. Dozens of dancers crowded the middle of the room, and Rose caught herself practically wiggling in anticipation of joining them. 

They barely got a half-dozen feet inside before the Doctor tucked his hand into her arm.

"Dance?" he asked. 

Rose grinned. "I hoped you still did." 

"Well, a woman whose opinion I value very highly once reminded me the world doesn't end because the Doctor dances." 

John watched, smile indulgent, as the two of them swept onto the dance floor. The lively swing slowed to a gentler tune, the tempo gentling to a lazy crawl through the air. The Doctor kept a hand pressed against the small of her back, the other loosely clasping her fingers. They drew closer as moments passed, the space becoming smaller and smaller until Rose pressed up against him. 

"You know I fell more than a little in love with you at that moment," he said against her ear. 

"Yeah?" Rose asked. The Doctor nodded. "Well, I always knew I needed to wait for you to catch up." 

"Oh? Well, Mx. Tyler, perhaps you’d be kind enough to enlighten a daft old man as to when you fell in love with him." 

Rose drew impossibly closer, craning her head to reach his ear, her heels not giving her the half a foot of height she needed to really reach him. “I could never pick a single moment.” 

The Doctor's face fought against a smile and he spun her around the dance floor, even past when the music ended. The small collection of dancers politely clapped and the Doctor finally escorted Rose to the side of the floor, just in time for John to cut in. 

"May I?" 

The Doctor bowed solicitously over Rose's hand and turned, about to pass her to John, when John ducked in to peck Rose’s cheek and swung the Doctor out instead. The other occupants of the small dance hall didn’t seem too concerned about the two of them cutting a rug on the floor. Rose, delighted, watched until they’d disappeared into the crowd before turning to find the loo. 

She ducked into the narrow hallway in search of the ladies’ when a strong arm grabbed her round the waist and a voice growled in her ear, “Got you now.”

* * *

Rose wasn't having a good night. 

It all started out promisingly. A trip to an underground jazz club? The alluring promise of bathtub gin? The chance to maybe _dance_? It should've been the perfect evening. 

Everything went downhill quickly. Her boys wandered off to who knows where, leaving her abandoned by the bar, sighing into a water-stained tumbler of the _worst_ liquor she'd ever put in her sodding mouth. 

She finished it anyway. Hell with it all. 

"Mind if I claim a dance now?" The flirty voice drifted across her shoulders, and she shivered. Goosebumps swept down her neck and she shifted her attention away from the rough-hewn bartop. The man, a few years her senior, looked lovely: _incredible_ hair and a tragically charming grin. How long since a bloke smiled at her like she’d brought about a day soaked in sunshine?

"'d love to," she replied. She tucked her hand in his and pealed out a laugh of delight as he glided out onto the dance floor, his momentum carrying her behind him as his entire body shimmied with poorly-contained chaos.

"Come on, you remember this one!" he laughed, spinning her about. Rose grinned wider than she had since they'd left the TARDIS and tried her best to keep up. He tucked his hands onto her hips—almost earning himself a slap—and proceeded to spin her around, dizzyingly quickstepping about the floor until she'd practically lost track of where her own feet touched the floor. 

His hand slipped lower and she smacked his knuckles, earning herself a laugh and a reprieve from the casual possessiveness of the touch. He might've been fit, but she wasn't the sort he obviously wanted to pull. 

Still. _Great_ dancer. 

Or, at least, until he leaned in close to laugh in her ear. "The Lindy Hop, Rose!"

She stopped dead, half-dragging him off his feet as a result. "How do you know my name?" she demanded. 

He frowned in confusion. "What?"

Before she could start a proper interrogation another man—significantly older, also well fit in the way of distinguished old gents could be—charged headlong into them. 

"John, Rose, we may have a problem." 

Rose's brow furrowed. "And who the hell are you?" 

They both stared at her, slack-jawed before they reached into their respective inside jacket pockets and pulled out sonic screwdrivers in an oddly synchronized movement, aiming them at her. Rose blinked; she'd never seen a sonic besides the Doctor's, and these were... not the same as his. These were both bigger and... flashier. Maybe a little overcompensation for something? She tried not to smile.

Her momentary good humour died when both aimed the screwdrivers at her. "Hey!" she protested as they scanned her. 

"No sign of temporal tampering," John muttered.

"Or mental manipulation."

"Stop it," Rose said, smacking the older man's sonic out of her face. 

"What's the last thing you remember?" the younger one—John?—asked. 

"Hold on, why should I tell either of you anything? I don't know you!" 

Punching them both in the face probably wouldn't have hurt them as much, from the way they both recoiled. Rose began to suspect something had gone deeply, deeply wrong.

"Rose's memory loss will have to wait," the older man said, cutting an agonized glance her way.

“Memory loss?” she repeated. 

Since starting her travels with the Doctor, she'd seen such brilliant things. Who was to say she hadn’t been driven barmy and somehow forgot meeting them? She remembered each moment that’d passed since leaving the TARDIS. Hell, she remembered everything before then, too. Picking out her dress, doing up her hair, the Doctor criticizing her makeup as inauthentic and attention-drawing, changing her makeup, changing her dress because she'd changed her makeup... All of it. And these two just didn't factor in anywhere. Did they?!

"I identified anomalous radiation in the basement. Need to figure out what's causing it." 

“Right. Let’s go,” John said. He tried her hand and Rose near ripped her fingers from his grip.

"Wait, so, I'm just supposed to go with you and, what, trust I know you? From my future?" Rose stared at them in disbelief. "Do you have any proof?" 

"Rose, I'm the Doctor."

Rose stared at him a moment before bursting into gales of laughter. "What, and you randomly changed your face? Spontaneously aged twenty years and gave up being Northern to become a Scotsman instead?" 

John and his friend exchanged a look and John blew out a long breath through pursed lips and puffed out cheeks. "You should take this one," John said. 

"I don't seem to recall it going particularly smoothly the first time." 

"Whatever this is, I ain't falling for it," Rose informed them. She pulled her hand out of John's grip. "Now if you'll excuse me."

She turned to go.

"Rose Marion Tyler," the older gent said over the din of the jazzy music. "I once pointed a gun at you. You once asked me what I was changing into." 

Rose froze. "No. I asked _the Doctor_ that.”

"Yes. When you put yourself between me and a Dalek." He stepped closer. “I finally have an answer for you, Rose. I was turning into a better man. Because of you.”

While Rose wanted to gasp, she suddenly found herself hard done by to catch her breath. "Doctor?" 

"Yes. And I promise we'll do everything we can to restore your memories. In the meantime there's something causing a temporal anomaly and we need to figure it out." He frowned. "In my experience, there's rarely such a thing as coincidence. Perhaps you saw something and tried to intervene."

"Is future me the type that runs into danger?"

"You've always been the type," John said with a sad smile. "Usually it's everyone else trying to keep up."

* * *

“Just so I’m understanding this right,” Rose said at the strappy ivory kitten heels she’d rummaged out of the wardrobe room what seemed like hours ago but apparently actually happened literal decades prior, “I’m married. To you. Both.” She said the words slowly, enunciating as best she could, avoiding any chance of error or misunderstanding inadvertently caused by way too much gin. The three of them were moving single file down the rickety metal staircase leading to the basement. ("Locked!" the Doctor declared, "With nothing more than a shoddy time lock. Practically begging for someone to break it.") A poorly lit collection of rum running paraphernalia stuffed each available inch of the space; empty barrels and small kegs highlighted by the warring scents of dust and ethanol. A long metal chute covered the single window, dropping onto a stained king-sized mattress stretched out on the floor. Rose wrinkled her nose at it. 

“What are we searching for?” she asked, desperate to distract herself from… all of it, really. 

“Anything out of place,” the Doctor replied. The Doctor—the Doctor! With a new, old face and the same kindness lurking in his eyes—barely brought himself to look at her. He instead fixed all his attention on his sonic, still looking much more... robust than the one to which she’d become accustomed.

(The overcompensation thing made her blush with the new implications of it; thank god for poor lighting).

Rose peered around the line of kegs. "Do you think this qualifies?" 

John and the Doctor whipped around to confront the shimmering oval suspended in the air. Shapes moving about through the colours reflecting out from the oily surface. Human, maybe? Human-shaped, in the weird way bipedal aliens occasionally resembled humans when you saw them from behind, right up until you got an eyeful and realized they’d neon skin. 

"An artron echo," John said. Rose frowned at him, and the explanation tumbled out of him naturally as a waterfall down a steep cliff. “Temporal radiation connecting a point of origin to the last destination connected by a time travel device such as a vortex manipulator. The mechanisms generally contain it, but unrefined models tend to leak after deactivation.” 

"There," the Doctor said, gesturing with his sonic to draw their attention to a strappy leather device on the floor near a row of empty kegs. “A vortex manipulator. Older than most of the models I’ve seen. Probably a black-market replica of the Time Agency’s earlier models.”

“Like Jack’s?” Rose asked. 

“Less refined,” John told her. “Back from before they’d full solved the issue of artron radiation sickness. Whoever’s using it to travel needs to limit the number of trips they take. Artron poisoning is an unpleasant way to go.” 

“This one’s been deactivated,” the Doctor said. “By a sonic, from all appearances. Old enough it caused the echo." 

“Do you have yours?” John asked. 

Rose frowned. “My… what?” He pulled out his own sonic screwdriver and wiggled it her way. “I have a sonic?” 

“Made it for you myself,” he said with a proud little wiggle. Rose tried and failed not to be charmed by it. 

Rose opened her handbag—no pockets in dresses with any hint of authenticity—and frowned at the meagre contents: lipstick, hairspray and a couple of tampons. No sign of a sonic. She shook her head, and John gaped in offense at the meagre contents. 

"What, they took your psychic paper too?" He glowered. “We’ll need to find both. 'Specially the sonic. Who knows what mischief someone could get up to with it,” he said, voice slightly strangled. 

"This kind," the Doctor agreed grimly. The echo seemed to quiver under his scrutiny. Then, emboldened by the attention, began to swell. 

"Oh shit," John said.

The thing exploded outwards. 

And they were suddenly not in the basement anymore.

* * *

Well. This was just _fucking brilliant_ wasn't it?!

The Doctor refused to say it aloud. Not when Rose obviously still distressed and John looked increasingly murderous. He estimated them to be on Victoria VII about fifty years past their separation from Victoria VI. He scowled at the broken vortex manipulator in his hand. Stupid, bloody useless keech. Whoever deactivated it did a thorough job (he'd be impressed if he weren't furious) and without the TARDIS they'd be hard pressed to get back until they found the right parts to fix it. 

Fortunately, Victoria VII happened to be one of the few places they might be able to find what they needed. Little wonder the manipulator’s artron echo brought them here as a point of origin.

"There's a robust black market trade for Time Agency detritus hereabouts," the Doctor said. 

"We can fix the manipulator and get back home," John nodded. 

"Only need to find the parts." The Doctor suddenly frowned. "Where's Rose?" 

John blinked and spun about. "Wasn't she right here?" 

The Doctor slapped his forehead. "Every time. _Every time_. Why do they always.... No, I know why. At least," he waved a hand towards John, "Rose can handle herself." 

John nodded, the move jerky and panicked. "Yes. And anyone else who comes along, even without sixty years of memories and extensive Torchwood training. But what happens if she gets into a scrape and Bad Wolf decides to come knocking and she can't control it to stop from blowing down the house?" 

The Doctor's eyes widened. " _Rose!_ " No answer. "All right, you head north, I'll head south. She wouldn't have gotten too far yet." 

After a short pause, both of them burst out laughing with disbelief; a truly determined Rose Tyler might already be on the other side of the planet sparking rebellion.

John took out his sonic and flipped it around. "I'll send you a signal if I find her." He took off down the southernmost alley.

"Don't start any civil unrest," the Doctor called after him. 

"No promises!" 

"Not as if Rose needs the help anyway," the Doctor murmured, turning northwards. Hopefully, while seeking out Rose, he'd be able to find the parts he needed to repair the manipulator and get them all home.

* * *

_Things never really change, do they?_

Rose dodged around a corner in time for the two men chasing her to sail by. She took the moment's reprieve to kick off her heels and took off down the alley. 

"There!" 

Rose did not look over her shoulder, only ran faster. 

Unfortunately, she couldn't think of anywhere to run _to_.

* * *

One of the wonderful things about Victoria VII happened to be their willingness to exchange mental signatures in lieu of actual currency. The collective psychic reserves of the planet happened to be shallow as a tide pool, as it were, and he happily traded a few of his less dangerous psychic impressions—particularly his impressions of pears, which he considered odd yet relevant considering the passionate hatred of them—in exchange for a few bits and bobs which would go a long way in fixing the manipulator. 

"While I'm here," he said, tucking the purchases away in his coat. "Did you happen to see a particularly lovely young blonde in a green dress happen by this way?" 

The shopkeep's eyes widened. "You know the woman who freed the rodemmoth?”

The Doctor blinked. "What."

* * *

"You! There!" 

John stopped and turned, grinning when he saw a couple of uniformed bipeds heading his way. Thank goodness this colony still predominantly spoke English... otherwise, without the TARDIS' translation matrix, they'd be worse off than they were already. 

"Ah! Local law enforcement. Excellent. My wife is missing, and—"

"You're under arrest for conspiracy to commit a terrorist act."

John sighed, but couldn’t bring himself to be too surprised. "If you'll just give me a moment to explain..."

"No. We allowed your wife the courtesy and she bolted."

"Ah." Good girl. "If that’s the case, I— _oh my god what is that?!_ "

"Sir, do you think we were born yesterd—" 

A rodent of elephantine proportions stampeded down the street, interrupting the officers and helpfully drawing their attention all at once.

(John took the distraction for what it was and ran.

(No one ever said he wasn't the opportunistic sort.))

* * *

"Okay, think," Rose whispered to herself. Alone on an alien planet. No Doctor. Slightly amnesic. No TARDIS to bring her home. Probably wanted for terrorism—honestly, as though she could've walked by as the arsehole electrocuted the poor thing. Bad enough circus elephants were tortured on Earth, she wouldn't stand for it here. And all she'd done really was deck the man holding the electric baton and opened up a cage or two. 

(Audible chaos still reached her from several blocks away, the animals all running loose through the area. Hopefully everyone had insurance).

Nothing looked familiar. She'd hoped to make it back to where the artron echo spit them out, and she'd gotten turned around during her mad dash from the filth. She remembered passing a jewelry store, a bang dealer, and a sort of confectionary... 

Ugh, if only she had the sonic John mentioned. Her sonic. Built by her husband. One of two husbands. Lots to process, even before getting stranded. When she’d started traveling with the Doctor she’d expected— _hoped, longed for_ —her life to change. This went somewhat further beyond the pale than she’d ever expected. 

What would mum say?

A shout from behind her sent her dodging into the nearest store, ducking behind a clothes rack and watching as the two men chasing her raced by. 

"Bienvenue aux Vêtements de Mauvais Loup." She turned to the alien behind her. Two faces, both smiling, regarded her from opposite sides of the same head. 

French? Maybe? Rose’d never gotten past a few general niceties and the ability to ask for directions to the loo. "Sorry?" 

"Ah, English. Welcome to my store. How can I help you?" 

"Umm. Just browsing," Rose said with a smile. 

"Without shoes?" 

"Yeah. Sorry. They were pinching something terrible."

The woman smirked knowingly. "We do have quite the lineup, if you'll follow me." 

"No money on me," Rose said with a wince. 

"Not a problem at all, my dear. We accept psychic impressions of all varieties, and I do offer an excellent exchange rate for happy ones." 

Rose thought of the Doctor—even before all this, when he’d got into a strop and decided to pick apart every single little thing she'd ever done wrong—and still managed to smile. "Yeah, got a few of those, I reckon." 

"Lovely. I have a pair of green heels to complement your dress marvellously."

* * *

You didn't often see a rodemmoth running amok through a crowded area. Unless you were present for the annual Running of the Rodemmoths of Ourobrillious of course. Now there was a party. 

The Doctor stepped out in front of it as it stampeded down the causeway, and held out his hand. The creature came to a sliding stop before him. It reared back in distress, the Doctor unable to calm it. He understood its desire to bellow out all the twisted up feelings inside it, despite the jagged scar across its neck, mostly hidden by the scads of soft green fur, told the story of why it could not. 

From the corner of his eye, he saw Rose poking her nose out from around a nearby corner. He turned and met her eye and beckoned her closer. 

"Hey now," Rose said. The moment the rodemmoth recognized her, the animal froze and dropped back down to its front paws, the force of it hitting the ground shaking the pavement beneath it. Rose stepped up to it and it dropped its snout down towards her. She stroked the chinchilla soft place between its ears. It shivered under her tender attentions. Perhaps, if it hadn't been permanently mutilated, it might've purred.

The Doctor stepped up next to her. "Frightening, isn't it? We're not used to quite so many people." He rested a hand against its snout. Fear, panic, pain... all belied by the desire to find the soft spoken person who set him free. Poor beastie. 

"It's not frightening," Rose whispered.

"I meant the people." 

She regarded him with fond eyes. "You really are my Doctor, aren't you?" 

The Doctor's lips thinned sadly. "No. But I should like to be." 

She smiled and continued stroking it right up until a contingent of armed individuals surrounded them, firearms aimed at the three of them. The Doctor whipped out his psychic paper and held it up. 

"Minister of Animal Safety?" one of them read. 

"This poor beast has been maltreated for years," the Doctor said. "And needs to be taken to a sanctuary for rehabilitation." When none of them hopped to action, he levelled his fiercest glare their way. "Put away your guns and get a transport down here to help it." 

Rose continued nuzzling the rodemmoth right up until the transport arrived.

* * *

As far as prisons went, this one ranked quite high, John decided. Warm floors. Good lighting. Comfy beds. Bars seemed surprisingly far apart (not far enough for him to slip through, nothing could be perfect). Even the company proved tolerable. 

By the time Rose and the Doctor arrived to collect him—he’d never doubted it—John'd rather cleaned up at five card stud.

"Well, this has been fun," he told the collected group. As a sign of good faith, he returned (half of) his winnings. "Good luck with the rash, Carl. Maybe try zinc oxide?" 

"Let's go," the Doctor said. He held aloft the repaired vortex manipulator. 

Travelling via vortex manipulator, as always, ended up as the most uncomfortable thing John experienced all week. They emerged back at their point of origin—the artron echo fortunately burned out by their accidental use of it. Rose, more than a little green around the gills, braced herself against a nearby barrel until the uncomfortable nausea of travelling in such an unrefined way passed. 

"This all definitely could’ve been worse," John said as the Doctor thoroughly dismantled the manipulator. There'd still be a chance of another echo, but they’d seal the door again to avoid anyone else getting sucked into the future. "Now we can see about figuring out what happened to Rose." 

Rose frowned down at her new green shoes. “What…” He saw the moment she tripped over the words. “What happens if I never get my memories back?” 

The Doctor’s shoulders slumped, and he seemed to refocus the entirety of his attention on the broken vortex manipulator. John looked helplessly at him a moment before reaching out to take Rose’s hand. “We’ll figure it out.” 

“You won’t drop me off at mum’s or anything?” 

John opened his mouth and then shut it again abruptly. His jaw clenched and he turned away, not before he noticed Rose catch the agonized expression on his face, one even the dim lighting wouldn’t hide. “No.” His voice broke. “No, I promise we won’t .”

* * *

Something had happened to mum, then. Rose shouldn’t have been surprised—she’d be into her dotage by now, with Rose now in her eighties. Her heart broke to think it. They’d just gotten into another row over laundry of all things. Well, not really over laundry. Mum never gave a rat’s arse if Rose used fabric softener. They’d left off both snapping ‘fine’ before Rose fled back to the TARDIS. Was the last thing she’d ever remember saying to her mother ‘ _fine_?’ She choked back a hard lump forming in her throat. 

“Rose,” the Doctor said. She looked at him, glad for the distraction, though the next words out of the Doctor’s mouth did nothing to alleviate the swelling anxiety in her breast. “You’re under no obligation to stay with me. Or,” he cut a glance at the other man, who stared hard at the far wall with a slightly murderous cast to his eyes. She didn’t find it particularly frightening; Rose doubted he’d ever aim the anger at her. “John. I can’t imagine you’re thrilled with this—”

“How can you say that?!” she demanded. “No, I’m not ‘thrilled’ with having sixty-odd years of memories stolen out of my brain, but it’s nothing you did.” She strode up to him with leagues of confidence she barely felt. “Did you want to marry me?”

The Doctor’s eyes flickered towards John again. “I wanted to _be_ married to you.” 

A curious distinction there; Rose would figure it out eventually. “Do you still?”

“Everywhere and always,” the Doctor replied.

Rose swung on John. “And you?” 

“Rose Tyler, you are and have always been the only woman I ever want to be married to.” 

“Going to be awkward if I ever regenerate as a woman,” the Doctor muttered. 

“The only human woman, then.” 

“Can that happen?” Rose demanded. What did she find more shocking: the idea of the Doctor regenerating, the idea of the Doctor regenerating _into a woman_ , or how little she minded the idea at all?

“Of course it can happen. Remind me to tell you about Missy.”

“Do let’s not bring her into this,” John sighed. 

They were getting off track. “Doctor, I think I’d fancy remembering being married to you.” 

“Would you?” he asked, finally turning his full attention on her. He looked unreasonably sad. “You’re a nineteen-year-old human woman, Rose.” 

“You said I was over eighty, if I recall.” She’d got ancient. She kept peeking at her hands in search of liver spots.

“Your memories are all those of a nineteen-year-old, then. Whyever would you want to be saddled with me?” When John grabbed for the Doctor’s arm, he shook off the other man’s hand. “Why would either of you?” 

Rose scoffed and turned irritated eyes at John. “He’s kidding, yeah?” 

John shook his head. She took a chance and looped her arm about his waist. He fit against her perfectly. Same as the Doctor would. She fixed the Time Lord with an arched brow and annoyed moue. 

“Let’s say you never get my memories back,” she finally said. The Doctor’s forehead furrowed furiously, probably considering what to do with whoever took them in the first place. “We’ll have a chance of building new ones, right?” 

“Leaves out the trauma of it all, certainly,” John said. He tilted his head the Doctor’s way. “Gives us the opportunity not to repeat certain bad habits.”

Rose chuckled. “What, does he leave wet towels on the floor?” 

“I most certainly do not,” the Doctor objected, aggrieved. John and Rose smiled at each other conspiratorially and, okay, Rose guessed from the twinkle in his eyes why she might truly love him. There was a genuine playfulness there, and a strange _knowing_ she wanted to preen under when directed her way. Like he understood her in a way beyond mates and into _mates_.

“What then?” Rose asked. 

“He gets chalk dust all over the sheets, for one,” John said.

Rose laughed, even as heat crept up her neck into her cheeks. Sheets. Bedsheets. From the bed she shared with both of them. 

“And tunes his guitar in the same room when we’re trying to watch telly. Says it’s because of the acoustics, but it’s really because he wants to show off for us.” 

“The acoustics _are_ perfect in the theatre! It’s why the telly’s in there.”

Speaking of acoustics, a shrill scream filtered through the cold air return and bounced through the air around them. The three of them hopped to action and charged towards the stairs and up the narrow metal steps. 

The screaming came from a hallway behind the piano in the far corner, half-concealed by a heavy velvet curtain. They pushed their way through to find themselves in a concealed lounge, a cluster of exquisitely dressed patrons all crowded around a figure collapsed upon a brocaded fainting couch. A single man, stripped near to naked, hence the utterly scandalized screaming from a woman only a few years Rose’s senior. 

As they approached, the man turned wide eyes on Rose. 

“You can’t take me! I ate it all!” he declared. 

“Ate what?” Rose demanded. 

The Doctor scanned him with his sonic. “A significant amount of bang, apparently.” 

John snorted, his entire frame relaxing from the tension he’d been carrying since they’d heard the scream. “Is that all?” He glanced at Rose. “Bang’s a minor psychoactive drug. Organic compound. Chemically similar to chocolate. Causes a sudden onset—one might say a 'bang'—of euphoria, deep relaxation and an overwhelming sense of joy. Unfortunately, twenty percent of humans lack the enzymes to break it down properly. Tends to have adverse reactions, including paranoia and, occasionally, a hyperactive state.” He gestured to their surprise nudist. “Mostly replaces marijuana in the mid-2160s when the stock on Earth gets taken out by a single-species blight in 2157.” When she tried to interject once or twice, John talked over her, completely oblivious. Suddenly, he frowned, abruptly halting his million-miles-an-hour stream of words. “He shouldn’t have access to it.” 

“She’s going to arrest me!” the man declared. His eyes widened. “I must become invisible.” He began stripping off his pants and Rose spun away, as did all the other women nearby. The entire area rose a few degrees from the heat of their combined blushing. 

“There’s a pill you can take to compensate for the enzyme deficiency. Won’t be developed for the next three centuries, and by then everyone is onto the synthetic stuff instead of anything organic,” John continued. “Nothing to worry about, though. Bang gets metabolized so quickly it should be out of his system in no time.” 

Rose watched as the now-naked man began zooming across the room, pausing at one point to hop up onto a piano. “I _do_ remember the Doctor telling me all that.” 

“You do?” John asked hopefully, his entire face lighting up. 

“It’s why we’re here in the first place, innit? Investigating a dealer from the future who showed up to sell off his stuff. Not like we’d just come here to, y’know, _dance_.” Rose cast a furtive glance at the Doctor and blushed. And here she’d thought the conversation about dancing purely hypothetical. After the talk, she’d tried to reconsider her expectations, and focused on being happy with Mickey. He might not’ve been as exciting as the Doctor, but he loved her with a warm familiarity she associated with family. Maybe not home, anymore. Home slowly shifted into the humming of the TARDIS engines around her, and the stars pressing into her skin as she travelled through them.

“I’d no idea we had a bang dealer anywhere on the premises,” the Doctor told her, brow drawn.

Rose shook her head. “No, I clearly remember you telling me about it.” She waved a hand. “Not-you-you. Your other you. Younger you.” 

“Gallifreyan is much better at parsing temporally-indicative noun declensions,” John muttered. 

“Hold on,” the Doctor said, his already-creased forehead wrinkling even further in through. “We never investigated any bang dealers together.”

“Sure we did. Jack came with us and everything.” 

The Doctor’s eyes got a queer strain about them. “Rose…” 

“What’s all this, then?” 

Rose and John both turned as the Doctor pressed his fingertips to the bridge of his nose in time for the Doctor—her Doctor, her _proper-not-married-to-her_ Doctor—to appear from behind the curtain. 

“Ohhhh,” John said behind her, the bitten-off word the least number of syllables she’d heard from him in the entire time they’d been together. 

“Rose, you all right? Did they…” the Doctor trailed off as he turned his attention to John and the Doctor. 

“Not memory loss, then,” Rose said quietly. 

“Not yet anyway,” the Doctor—her future husband?—agreed. “You can’t keep these memories, Rose. Neither can he.” 

“I think I can be the judge,” her Doctor said imperiously. He shoved his body in between Rose, and John and the (other?) Doctor. “When?” 

“Further in my life than I ever imagined,” the other Doctor replied. His face seemed to shift into sadness, and John grabbed his hand tight. “Much further.” 

Her Doctor’s attention refocused on John. “Sticking with the pretty boys, are we? Figured we’d learned our lesson there.” His eyes flickered towards Rose, and she tried not to cross her arms and huff. 

John cracked up. Literally doubled over laughing, earning himself a mystified grimace from her Doctor, and an absurdly fond one from the future Doctor. 

“We don’t have a leg to stand on, travelling with Jack and all.” The future Doctor paused. “Where is he, anyway?” 

And then they heard the giggling coming from the small alcove on the other side of the room.

* * *

_30 Minutes Earlier_

"Got you now!" 

Strong arms wrapped around Rose's waist. Rose automatically spread her legs to redistribute her weight, ducked down and under the attacker's arm and grabbed his legs around the knees. He grunted in surprise as she threw them both down to the ground and buried her elbow directly in his sternum, preparing to launch herself to her feet and run. 

"Rose," he gasped through a hard groan of pain, "What the hell?" 

She sat up and twisted about, earning another groan when she ended up sitting on the man's chest. "Jack?!"

"Who'd you think I was?" 

"You grabbed me from behind! You're lucky I didn't break your nose." 

"When did you learn how to do that anyway?" Jack demanded. He held his ribs as he sat up, though he still managed to appear ridiculously proud of her. 

Rose stared. "Jack," she repeated. " _Jack_!" Rose threw her arms around Jack's neck and held him tight. The last time she'd seen him—actually him, not just his face—she'd been so wrapped up with the Crucible and the Daleks and... oh, what did it matter. She’d found _Jack!_

"That's me. And who's he?" Jack peered out the entrance to the hallway, eyebrows speculative lascivious as he fixed his gaze on the Doctor. “I'd say you have great taste, but I wouldn't want to get Himself worked up over it." 

Himself. The Doctor? Jack hadn’t met this Doctor yet. Oh, this would be grand if not an utter disaster. The Doctor still considered Jerrick a touchy subject, which he openly admitted to be utter hypocrisy even as he grumbled under his breath.

Jack's brow furrowed. "You okay?" He squeezed her back, his arms a reassuring weight around her. He'd always given the second-best hugs in the universe, by her reckoning. Nothing had changed. She melted into the embrace and pressed her nose into his neck. God, he smelled good. All musk and familiarity. 

"I missed you."

"Missed me? What'd you throw at me?" Tension drew up his shoulders through his strained laugh. "What's going on, Rosie? You saw me less than an hour ago when we landed." 

Rose drew back, her face in freefall. "When we landed?" she repeated in a half-whisper. 

Oh. 

Oh no. 

"When is this for you?" she asked.

Jack's face lit up with instant understanding. "Rosie Tyler, are you from my future?" He leaned in close. "Do I get to know the mister you were dancing with, because he can tango with me anytime."

"My husband," she admitted reluctantly. How much could she say, really? Then again, chances were they’d have to remove memories of this meeting anyway.

"You don't travel with the Doctor anymore?" Jack asked, flabbergasted. Maybe her promise of 'forever' came later than it needed to. Did she tell him about the Doctor? Did Jack know about regeneration prior to parting ways with them at the Game Station and meeting up with the Doctor and Martha later on? 

One way to find out. "I do." Rose gestured towards the Doctor—her Doctor—who’d allowed himself to become distracted by something on the other side of the room, leaving John grinning after him as he crossed the floor. 

Jack tilted his head, nonplussed. "Huh. Rumours about the Time Lords are true, then." He swung about. "Did I get to be Maid of Honour? Because I'd settle for best man, but it definitely would be settling as far as I'm concerned." He leaned close. "Did I get to wear pink?" 

She'd really missed Jack.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Because she had zero memory of ever being to this club before. 

"Oh, you know. Tracing down bang dealers who happen to be working in a cornered market." 

"Bang? Here?" She and John dealt with bang dealers in their Torchwood days. Tony's team had been working on a supplement to replace the enzyme in the hopes of introducing bang to the market in a safer, controlled setting. They'd still been researching it when she and John ‘died.’

"Yeah. The Doctor's wandered off to try and figure out who's dispensing it. You're... well. I think you got annoyed at him, because I saw you heading for the bar." 

She remembered being frequently annoyed with the Doctor—not to say it was all past tense—and deliberately wandering off to get under his skin in the same way he often got under hers. Good thing he’d gotten over the compulsion to refer to humans as apes and viewing her as a particularly precocious example of her species.

"Who are we looking for?" Rose asked, all business. They needed to remove all bang from the premises before it interrupted the natural time stream. 

"No idea. Someone out of place." Jack peered through the crowd. "Maybe him?" 

Rose followed his line of sight, her lips curling into a smile. "Our husband, John."

Jack swooned. "Rose Tyler, I am so proud of you." 

She smacked his arm. 

"Watch for anyone behaving a little spastically. Unusual twitching, armpit scratching." 

"'Armpit scratching'?" Rose repeated.

"The dealer is a crantonean."

"Ah." Most crantoneans suffered through a mild allergy to the metals used to create the popular shimmers available on the market. 

Rose's gaze swept across the floor, sticking on John for another long moment as he turned to approach a blonde at the bar, before landing on a man wearing a suit of full black. Anachronisms ahoy. "Him?" 

"Good instincts," Jack said after a moment's consideration. The man disappeared into a curtained-off area on the far side of the room. "Shall we?" 

Rose paused for a moment. No small chance, if she went with Jack, she'd end up crossing her own timestream. On the other hand, she remembered nothing about any of this, the Doctor would insist on Jack forgetting all about it. 

"Allons-y," she agreed.

Jack leveled another queer look her way before shrugging and leading her through the crowd. 

They caught up with the dealer in the middle of exchanging bang for a small nugget of what Rose suspected to be hematite. He didn't notice at first when she and Jack flanked him, and startled when Jack coughed pointedly at his side. Little wonder; in addition to their pervasive allergies, crantoneans were cycloptic and near-sighted to boot. His buyer—a twentysomething brunette in a mismatched summer suit—poorly feigned nonchalance and wandered off, hastily stuffing his wares into his mouth. Hopefully he’d be able to digest it. 

The crantonean made no excuses as they frog-marched him across the room to the discreetly marked stairwell leading to the basement. A mess of emptied barrels and bar paraphernalia crowded the downstairs, but fortunately there weren’t any humans around to gawk. 

"I'm Agent Parker, and this is Lady Hardison-Spencer," Jack said, whipping out his psychic paper. The crantonean's shimmer paled. "You do understand at this point in history, Earth is categorized as a level one planet and sales of all off-world generated organic compounds is completely prohibited by intergalactic trading standards?" 

The dealer shifted uncomfortably. "This planet has richer hematite deposits than any other in this galaxy." 

"Which your people only use for cosmetic purposes," Rose said. 

"Hand it over," Jack ordered. 

The dealer reluctantly withdrew a handful of the semiprecious stones from his pocket. 

Rose shook her head. "Not the hematite. I’m prepared to let you keep it as long as you continue cooperating. We want the bang. All of it." 

With an even more pronounced twitch, the dealer handed over his entire stash in a clear plastic container, the contents tightly wrapped individual pieces measured out in squares probably only about an ounce in weight, all present and accounted for save the single brick-shaped sample he'd already given out. 

"Your vortex manipulator," Rose said, snapping her fingers. With another twitch, he gamely held it out. “I’m going to give you the choice between staying here and a one-way trip back to your own time. Pick one.” 

The man’s face twisted up. “Can I keep my shimmer?” They regarded him with joint surprise. “What? Got friends here, don’t I? And I’ve got skills they can put to use doing a bit of running. Not much for me back home.” 

Rose nodded and scanned his vortex manipulator to find the correct temporal wavelength. Once she’d identified the right one, her sonic stripped the operational use completely away. The dealer regarded it with regret, though the expression faded quickly. 

Taking pity on him, Rose offered a small smile. “Hey, I’ve known a few crantoneans in my time. They’ve all said zinc oxide is good for the itching.” 

“Ta, miss.” He shuffled his way back upstairs without further complaint. 

“Older model,” Jack pointed out once Rose dropped it to the ground. “It’s going to slow leak out temporal radiation for about half an hour, I’d say.” 

Rose grimaced. “Cheap and nasty way to travel through time.” 

Jack smirked her way. “You really have spent a long time with him, haven’t you?” 

Rose shrugged. “We’ll have to time lock the door so no one gets down here.” 

They made their way back upstairs to the VIP room. On the other side of the curtain, the young man from earlier stood laughing in unfettered delight, waving his hand in front of his face. 

"Seems like a good batch," Jack whispered next to her. "You wanna?" 

Rose turned a speculative glance his way. "Yeah." 

They tucked themselves into a small alcove off the lounge. 

The Doctors, John and her younger self found them a while later, braced up against each other and giggling themselves silly. When the Doctor—her Doctor, her _husband_ the Doctor—frowned at them, Jack hooted in laughter. 

"You were right! The eyebrows!" he choked out. Rose toppled over and pressed her face against Jack's thigh. "Amazing!" Had they gotten louder? They'd gotten louder. 

"What about my eyebrows?" 

Rose laughed so hard she felt tears running down her cheeks, and half-toppled out of Jack's lap. The Doctor—her first Doctor, all ears and leather and growling and guarded smiles—saved her at the last moment, bracing her against his chest when he swooped in to catch her. She grinned ear-to-ear up at him. 

"Hullo," she whispered. She stroked his cheek. He examined her the way he might an undiscovered nebula: inspired and confused all at once. She wondered if he knew they were married. Oh! She should tell him. Surprise the look right off his face, it would. 

She grabbed his lapels, and found herself immediately distracted by the feeling of leather under her palms. "I miss this jacket." 

"What happens to it?" the Doctor demanded. 

"Still hung up at mum's, prolly," Rose did her best to shrug, mouth dropping open when the stretch of her muscles caught her attention. It felt good to stretch. She swung her gaze towards John, hovering over her first Doctor's shoulder with a grin plastered across his face. "I don't think we ever went back for it." John mimed biting down on vaguely bar-shaped and she nodded. He chortled out a snapped-off laugh, pausing only when her first Doctor swung an irritated glare his way. 

"Rose," Jack whisper-shouted. She craned her neck up at him. "Why is your Doctor angry at me?" 

Her husband-Doctor scowled at Jack, severity notched up several degrees higher than normal. "'s not you. Just your face." 

Jack nodded solemnly. 

"All right," her first Doctor said. He hefted her up into his arms—she'd forgotten the corded strength and genuine empathy, so carefully hidden behind his veneer of feigned contempt—and turned to face John. "You take this one." 

"Gladly," John said. He accepted Rose and grinned down at her when she reached up to play with his hair. "You better have saved a bite for me." 

She stuck her pointer finger against her lips and winked. The euphoria began to fade; they'd only really enjoyed a tiny piece each. Better to save the rest for later she decided with a grin. While Jack pocketed the majority of it, she’d squirreled away a few pieces for later. 

John set her down on her feet, steadying her with solid hands at her waist until she proved she wasn't wobbling. She wiggled about in her heels to make sure and then nodded at him. John withdrew his hands and turned his attention to where Jack started... what? Reciting poetry? Not dirty limericks, either; he'd launched into a recitation vaguely reminiscent of the time a fellow Torchwood agent got rat arsed and began declaiming the Iliad. Jake got it all on his phone and trotted it out occasionally to make a point about open bars at company parties. 

Jack's recitation was a fair bit more impassioned. He launched himself at Rose's first Doctor to show off his best impression of a boa constrictor, leaving John and her husband the Doctor to try and detangle them. 

It left Rose standing quite close to her younger self as they both maneuvered out of the way. Close, but not touching. The lesson remained stuck in their skull(s?)

"What happens with Mickey, then?" she asked herself. 

Rose smiled fondly. "He's happy." 

"Good." 

A moment of awkward silence followed, interrupted by John squawking as Jack made a pass at his bum. 

"There's something you need to remember," Rose said suddenly. Her younger self turned questioning eyes on her. "No matter what. You _will_ find him. I promise." 

Rose had few natural psychic talents. John and the Doctor bolstered her with their own abilities instead of relying on any talent she possessed. Didn’t matter; she still made a point of staring into her own eyes and trying her best to push the words into her own mind and bury it deep. She'd clung to the unwavering faith as fact when she'd been in Pete's world. It bolstered her through discouraging thoughts and drove her to develop the dimension cannon; it pushed her through the darkest moments when she found herself searching for him across time and space without a sign. She'd never known where the unshakable belief came from. And all this time, she’d made the promise to herself in past, present and future tense.

They both turned their attention to Jack, who seemed to be coming down from his own high and appeared content to swoon into her first Doctor's arms. The Time Lord looked about ready to drop him. Probably spoke worlds when he wouldn’t. 

"We should go," her husband the Doctor said at her side. Rose turned a brilliant smile on him, which he returned with a fond turn of his countenance. 

"What, no time for another dance?" John asked, shimmying his hips and snapping his fingers. 

"I'll dance with you," Jack offered. 

"Absolutely not," her husband the Doctor snapped. Rose and John exchanged broad grins. "And you two stop that. With your faces. Stop." 

"All right," Rose said. She hooked her arm through his and caught John with her other. Her younger self stared a moment and Rose winked. "Remember what I said." 

"She won't," her first Doctor said. "Have to forget all of this, won't we? Wouldn't do to go mucking about with the timelines. All future knowledge of..." He waved at them, and the wind blew out of his sails. "I can't even begin to understand how this happened." 

"It's a long road, and well-traveled. Sometimes it will seem unending,” her husband the Doctor told him. He glanced between her and John. “You'll find your way there in the end.” 

Her first Doctor still seemed perturbed—a disproportionate mixture of curious, confused and tentatively, heart-rendingly hopeful. She'd never forgotten how broken he'd seemed in those early days after the Time War. Those achingly slow days where he'd struggled his way towards making his smiles genuine instead of masks plastered on to present himself to the universe as whole. She wondered if she’d finally witnessed the moment when the smiles began reaching his eyes. 

They left their past behind them—literally—to make their way back towards the TARDIS.

* * *

The Doctor’s steps faltered as they rounded the corner into the alley where they’d left the TARDIS, his brow furrowing. Rose and John halted at his side. 

“Did… did we leave the door open?” Rose asked, her voice dropping from its buoyant joy to immediate concern. 

“We did not,” the Doctor replied. Rose’s arm dropped away from his, and they slowed their approach. If a threat awaited them inside, it wouldn’t do to announce themselves quite so soon. 

The moment the Doctor stepped onto the TARDIS, the very air stung with a metallic wrongness scraping against his senses and leaving his nerves raw and aching. The suffocating weight of it had him fighting to catch his breath. 

"Rose. John. Out." 

Rose frowned. "What?"

"Get off the TARDIS!" he ordered. 

"We're not leaving you!" "Like hell!" they snapped at once. 

The Doctor strode to the console and rammed his palm against the navigational controls. The TARDIS shuddered a moment and he grabbed hold of the dematerialization lever, barely managing to hold on as the door flung open and the entire ship tilted on her side, sending Rose and John flying out, alighting them gently into the fresh-fallen snow beyond. The doors snapped shut and gravity returned to normal, leaving the Doctor to storm down the corridor in search of whatever horrible tumour made his ship scream with such intense agony. 

She whooshed them both away, into the Vortex and then into open space, trying to scrape away the pain by blistering herself against the stars. 

Doors disappeared as he passed, the hallways compressing away to nothing, the entire ship shrinking around him as the TARDIS navigated his path. Whatever the threat, it'd been tucked into her very recesses, out of the way unless she helped him find it. Why she allowed it to happen in the first place became a pressing concern. 

Finally the TARDIS led him to an out-of-the-way utility door. With all other doors vanishing in face of his stride, only this one remained for his examination. 

He threw it open, sonic at the ready. 

The room stood empty save for a single, small device seated in the middle of the floor. A device he knew intimately, though the last time he'd checked the thing had been ten times the size. Warrington’s particle collider, gone missing the day he once again found Rose and John, now significantly smaller without the trappings needed to draw up the energy it needed to render itself capable of generating a black hole. 

It didn’t need them. It was already fully charged and prepared to expend itself _inside the TARDIS._

* * *

"Every time!" Rose snarled, punching fruitlessly at the powdery snow they'd landed in.

"I have a new appreciation for how frustrating this is," John admitted, pushing himself to standing. He clasped her hands in his and pulled her to her feet. 

" _Every time!_ " Rose repeated. She’d half a mind to storm back into the club and find her first Doctor again, and demand he help them follow after their infuriating husband.

"Such a rich history of abandonment. Shame this will be the last time, isn't it?" 

Rose and John spun at the sound of the new voice; the velvety deep, perfect Received Pronunciation froze the blood in Rose's veins with its icy veneer. The man speaking stood the same height as John, his chiseled face perfectly suited to the implacable cruelty Rose saw in his otherwise terrifyingly empty eyes. 

"Who are you?" John demanded. His hand drifted for his inside jacket pocket, doubtless to fish out his sonic, when recognition dawned in Rose’s memory. 

"Annatar," Rose whispered. "Missy's husband." 

The man offered a humourless smile. "Ah. She did seek you out, then. She said she would, when I grew bored of her and cast her aside. I believe she wanted me to be jealous." Before John twitched a half-inch further, the man raised a single finger in the air to stall him. "I wouldn't bother with your silly toy, were I you." 

"Toy," John repeated, outraged. 

"Childlike in its creation, childlike in its efficacy. Yes, a toy." He held up his other hand to show off a slender rod. 

"What's that, then?" Rose demanded. 

"This is the perfect example of what the Doctor might accomplish if he stopped playing about and decided to take his role in the universe seriously." 

With a snap of his wrist, he aimed the tip at John. With the barest, wispy murmur of a hum John collapsed to the ground. 

"John!" Rose shouted. She dove for him, simultaneously reaching for her own sonic. If she disabled it—

Her entire body seized and she crumpled down next to him, face-first in the snow. True fear wrapped around her heart when she tried to blink away the fat flakes sitting on her eyelashes and she found herself unable. For all she tried, she couldn't force a single twitch of her finger. Her entire body felt disconnected from the commands of her mind. Panic overwhelmed her when she realized her lungs were no longer expanding and they began to burn for want of breath. God, was her heart even beating? 

She stared at the back of John's head, willing him to roll over. 

Instead, a rough hand grabbed her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. 

"The typical human specimen suffering oxygen deprivation tends to lose consciousness within one minute," he told her. He tilted his head and met her gaze. Her eyes were rapidly drying out, burning from the need to blink as her vision began to cloud over. "Shall we time you then, Rose Tyler? I'd say you have a fair chance of lasting at least five." His mouth twitched, though she wouldn't call the expression a smile. "Five minutes, in this case, you'll find lasts a small lifetime." 

The seconds ticked by at a crawl. A snowflake landed on her eye and she imagined glass in her retina would be less painful as it began to melt.

"There goes dear John," he said. He reached a hand out of her vision, and she heard the sound of John's body rolling over. "Now we can see if time goes even slower as you wonder whether or not I'll re-enable his muscular functionality and allow him to breathe." He leaned close enough for Rose to feel the warmth of his skin against her face. He blew a gentle breath towards her mouth. It smelled of mint. "Tick. Tick. Tick."

She remained awake eleven seconds after he offered her a shallow congratulations on lasting six whole minutes before finally surrendering to blissful unconsciousness.


	18. Override

“Attention, unauthorized entrance to this area is a class one infraction, which may result in the destruction of the Citadel. Class one infractions are grounds for immediate termination. Please remain in place until security forces reach your location.”

“Override code Rassilon 1-9-8-6-0-9-06.”

“Acknowledged. Have a pleasant day.”


	19. Fall of the Damn'd Blade: Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW for character death and graphic depictions of injury.

Eyes wide, the Doctor stood frozen for only a moment before his entire body spasmed and he leapt at the device. Even with ninety percent of its mass gone, he guessed it to be capable of generating enough power to destroy not only the room, but the TARDIS herself. And he couldn't simply pick it up and do away with the enormous energy output weighing it down. Regardless of its diminished size, its weight remained impossibly heavy. 

Thank time itself he'd sent Rose and John away, though he wasn't sure they'd forgive him if he made it out of this alive. 

Only one thing to do, because he sure as _fuck_ wasn’t leaving the TARDIS. 

She anticipated his will, because as soon as he stepped out of the room, the door to the bedroom he shared with Rose and John appeared behind him. He swept in and sprinted for her infant daughter. 

“I need you,” he said, carefully lifting her from her tank. Her shields were silk-thin, and she immediately reached for his mind. She wanted John and Rose and her psychic signature clung to him as a limpet when she realized they weren’t nearby. 

Beyond any other feeling, she wanted to fly. 

Time to give her the chance. 

He ran back to the particle collider. If he could just find a way to maneuver himself and the coral she might be strong enough to get them off the TARDIS. While the Doctor never presented himself as her parent in the way John and Rose claimed, he always took great joy in being available to coax her and help her grow ever since she’d come aboard. The TARDIS encouraged her to stretch herself. She’d grown more since coming aboard than in the nearly sixty years before, and he knew her capable of the extraordinary. 

He clamped his body around the collider, the TARDIS tucked into the space between the rough metal and his chest. Her fear and her pride warred within her and echoed through to his mind.   
Regardless of the fact she’d only ever managed a few metres, she’d been birthed from the most magnificent ship in the entire universe and she was determined to prove her worth. 

The Doctor focused his mind, clearing it of everything save his burgeoning link with her. 

At an achingly slow speed they dematerialized.

She managed to get them off the TARDIS. Suddenly weightless, they floated in space. The Doctor released the collider and it hung in the air, still poised to explode outwards into a black hole set to consume them all; the Doctor, the TARDIS and the coral. 

The TARDIS waited for him, achingly close; even the smallest amount of momentum would allow him to pull them aboard. As such, the only avenue available to him would be floating uselessly in space until the collider activated.

A weak flicker of awareness tripped into his mind. 

The coral. She could still go. The TARDIS would hold on as long as possible before all her internal processes caught up and forced her to dematerialize on her own rather than face destruction. His ship fought against her programming to wait until the last possible moment before allowing the continuity subroutines to take control. And while she might not be able to scoop them up without proper direction, the coral possessed enough strength to get herself back into her mother’s embrace, allowing the two of them to escape. He pressed the idea down through the thread of consciousness connecting them. 

She refused. She wanted to take him with her.

_No more,_ he begged the poor, exhausted child. If anything happened to her, Rose and John would never forgive him. He’d never forgive _himself_. He was the Doctor and he would not allow it.

Oh how he wanted to draw breath as her uncomplicated love suffused him; their coral absorbed and internalized an echo of what Rose and John felt for him, changing it into familial adoration. They loved the Doctor beyond reason, and their darling girl refused to let him die. 

She summoned her last ounce of strength and pulled them back towards the TARDIS. They moved only a few feet, but it brought them close enough for the Doctor to catch the latch on the door and pull them both inside. 

With lightning-quick movements he flung himself to the console and slammed down the dematerialization lever. It didn’t matter where they were going, he needed to get them away from the collider before it erupted with its stolen energy and sucked them into the event horizon. 

The TARDIS screamed joyously as she raced them away. She shook with the effort of it, and the Doctor stumbled back from the console, cradling the coral to his chest as he hit the stairs and toppled across them. 

The TARDIS brought them to the Vortex, shuddering to a stop.

The Doctor shakily rose to his feet. Her efforts bleached nearly all the colour out of the coral, and their already tenuous connection shrivelled down to a weak whisper in his mind. With gentle movements befitting the most precious—the strongest, most resilient—cargo, the Doctor carried the coral back to her tank. He felt her fading as the meagrest of flames died when deprived of oxygen. The Doctor settled her down, and regardless of the careful ease to his movements, flakes fell away from her to scatter across the bottom of the tank, mixing with the enriched soil. 

“You did magnificently,” he whispered. 

Even the nigh-limitless resources on Gallifrey would have struggled to do anything for her. No TARDIS coral, even one grown in ideal circumstances, would have a scintilla of hope of surviving such awful exertion at a young age with relatively minimal growth. 

The only thing left to do was sit vigil and wait until she flickered out.

* * *

Instead of snapping back to consciousness, John took a rather circuitous route through a stressful not-dream about pie (or pi? The constraints of the human brain meant he only remembered the first five hundred digits, and only then if he relied on muscle memory) and ending with heavy-lidded eyes blinking open against the grainy feeling of having been unconscious rather than asleep. The floor beneath him was properly hard instead of the wonderfully firm mattress he shared with Rose and the Doctor, solid stone engraved with something of a pattern, though from touch alone he’d no idea what the pattern meant. 

He forced his eyes open several times before it stuck, and he found himself staring at a ceiling crowded with wiring and carefully placed cables. Not unlike the TARDIS, in some ways. He fancied he knew her systems well enough he would’ve recognized her layout had he still been aboard. He pushed himself to sitting and idly ran his gaze along a single cable through to a junction box, definitely Gallifreyan in make and design. To follow…

His hand slid forward and he gasped as a stinging electric sensation shot up his arm from his fingertips to his elbow. He whipped his hand back and cast a mystifying glance at the floor, the sensation of pain immediately paling when the engravings beneath him caught his full attention. Old High Gallifreyan. While John for the life of him couldn’t read it any longer, there was really only one place it would’ve been inscribed on a floor. 

Gallifrey. 

Specifically, somewhere on the Citadel. 

“Not the triumphant returned you imagined, surely.” John craned his neck to see the speaker behind him, practically falling over as his body contorted. His foot knocked into the same invisible barrier, and he yanked it back with a hiss. The sting didn’t last long, rather reminiscent of licking a live battery, and leaving a shivery iciness up to his knee. 

He carefully maneuvered himself around, keeping his limbs tucked close, and shifted around until he looked upon the speaker. The man looked vaguely familiar. Ginger, which John inexplicably hated him for, and dressed in enough white he might’ve been heading for the altar. 

All impressions fled when John realized he stood next to Rose, sprawled unconscious on the floor only a few metres away. 

He leapt forward, only for the invisible barrier surrounding him to slap him in the face and send him reeling back. 

“Rose!” he shouted. 

“Yes, yes, yes, let’s have the dramatics out of the way. She’s alive, you’re alive, you’re both being held in containment barriers exactly five feet across, both coded specifically to your DNA. Attempts to bypass it will be increasingly painful, but will stop short of actual cardiac arrest.” He pulled a slender device from his pocket and aimed it at Rose. 

“Stop!” 

The man ignored him. Seconds later, Rose jerked with a cry and scrabbled to her knees. Her shoulder banged against the barrier and she shouted in pain. Rather than tuck in on herself, she jumped to her feet, spinning ‘round until she’d taken a quick survey of their captor, the room, and John himself. While seeing him seemed to ease her panic, she stayed on guard, tensing as the ginger approached her again.

“Pardon the rude awakening. I need you conscious for this next part.” 

He made his way across the room, passing by Gallifreyan devices John recognized as the generators for the transduction barriers surrounding the Citadel. While they’d been outrageously modified, the changes weren’t enough to shut the barriers and bring. Such sabotage would’ve brought down the entire wrath of the Time Lords. Still, someone had anchored foreign cables and transmitters into every corner, turning the devices into conduits for… what? 

His screwdriver sat ready in his pocket. He subtly shifted his body to keep his actions hidden and slowly began to reach for it.

The ginger halted in front of a machine John didn’t recognize; nothing that ever would’ve been part of the Citadel’s engineering efforts. A certain refinement existed in Gallifreyan creations the thing lacked in its construction, making it stand out with obscene displacement when compared to the rest of the machinery in the room. Sawblade protrusions stuck out at sharp angles and creating wicked corners all centred around a guillotine-inspired structure in the middle. 

“What is that?” Rose demanded. John’s attention shot to her, overcome by the devastating panic in her voice and the pallor in her face as all the blood fled. The mystifying machine meant something to her in ways not obvious to him. 

“Brilliant, isn’t it? I call it the Temporal Glaive,” he said. 

He’d almost managed to reach his sonic without calling attention to himself. Only another few seconds and he might be able to get them both out of this.

“I created it to sever the connection between our universe and the Vortex.”

John froze as his stomach dropped, his breath catching in his throat and sticking to choke the breath from his lungs. “You’re talking about making time travel impossible.” 

“Yes. For everyone except me. You see, I’ve unlocked the key to Galbranian time tunneling. Not difficult, really, when you combine the joined intelligence—indulge me, and imagine the word in quotation marks—of Rassilon and the Doctor." John filed the information away for later consideration. "The rest of the universe will be stuck on the slow path, yet I... I'll be able to shape it easily as clay.” 

Rose scoffed, though John knew her well enough to see it as a brave front. "Just another egotist with a god complex, then."

He chuckled. "I'm much more, Rose Tyler. I'm an amalgamation of Rassilon and the Doctor. All their cunning and skill and abilities combined in endless potential. And soon I'll be the only being in the universe capable of traveling through time. 

His smile grew increasingly vicious. "I am the Valeyard."

John felt the blood rush from his face, his heart gripped tight in his chest. He remembered the Valeyard, the memory stubbornly stuck in his mind despite all efforts to scrape it out, and his long ago attempt to rob the Doctor of his regenerations to secure his own standing as a Time Lord. While Rose gave him no outward recognition, John felt her anxiety beating against their connection, frantically trying to become something tangible rather than a kaleidoscope of jumbled emotions. 

He finally wrenched his sonic free and aimed it at the barrier. His movements attracted the Valeyard’s attention, but not in time to stop him. His sonic whirred, and he prepared to charge forward, only to stare in horror as the barrier stubbornly refused to drop. 

The Valeyard’s eyebrow twitched. “I’m not sure if such a pathetic attempt speaks to the calibre of your intelligence, or your impressions of mine. These barriers are specifically crafted to withstand sonic interference.”

John grit his teeth and lowered his arm. Fine, he couldn’t rely on his sonic. He’d just have to find another way to break free.

"What do you plan to do when you're the only one who can travel through time?" Rose asked in a remarkably steady tone. 

The Valeyard returned his attention to her. "Anything I please. That's the brilliant thing about being the only one capable. Fixed points won’t exist—why would they, if I'm the only one to manipulate events?—and no paradoxes save ones I control." Usually such declarations teetered on the edge of madness, but his expression conveyed only frightening clarity. "They trapped me in a cage for an eternity, and now I have the freedom to do whatever I want. And I intend to take advantage of it."

John shook his head. "If it's freedom you want, you needn't anchor the rest of us to do it." 

"There's no point in being a god among gods," the Valeyard sniffed.

Rose’s lips pursed. "None of us are gods."

"Not with that attitude."

"What do you want with us?" John demanded, sick of the whole affair. Let the Time Lord, if indeed he could be called one, come to the point. 

"With you? Nothing. You're completely incidental outside your value to the Doctor and the frankly enormous amusement I glean from Rassilon's irritation at your existence." 

"Me, then," Rose said. Her anxiety sharpened to a needle point, and as it pierced John's mind he heard the distant howl of a wolf in the distance. 

"In a way. After all, there's one simple way to be immediately certain the Glaive has been effective in shutting down access to the Vortex. 

“Isn't there, Rose Tyler?" 

They both came to the realization at the same time as he crossed the room towards the Glaive.

"No!" John shouted. He slapped the edge of the barrier, growling through the pain. If he just pushed through... 

The Valeyard ignored him as he moved through a complicated series of movements not unlike piloting the TARDIS; shifting levers and adjusting levers until the thing hummed with potential energy. The floor beneath John began vibrating on an ear-throbbing frequency, rattling his bones and squeezing the breath out of his lungs. He pounded on the barrier again and again, pressing against it until he lost feeling in his arm to his elbow and it fell uselessly at his side. 

He shoved his other arm forward. A simple bioreactive containment shield? He could fight his way through this if his _bloody body would just cooperate._ He cried in agony as piercing static raced through his veins, but he almost—

The Valeyard paused with his hand next to a simple toggle. 

"Stop this!" John screamed. 

Rose uncompromisingly met the Valeyard's eyes with grim dignity. They stared at each other in silent communion. 

“I love you, John,” Rose said. 

The Valeyard pressed down. The vibration stopped only a moment before a deafening shockwave burst forth, knocking John backwards into the opposite side of the barrier. The last of his strength sapped out of his body. He rolled over in time to see Rose collapse. She did not gasp, nor whisper a last breath. She simply slumped lifeless to the floor.

" _No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, **ROSE!**_ " Her name tore itself from John's throat hard enough to bloody his vocal chords. It made no difference. She didn't move. 

The Valeyard did not gloat. Nor offer smug exposition. Instead, he crossed to the only door into the room and opened it without so much as a glance in John’s direction. 

"When I get out of here," John choked out, "I'm going to kill you." 

Finally pausing, the Valeyard peered over his shoulder. "Not something the Doctor would condone, surely." 

"I am _not_ the Doctor." 

"Good thing, considering I killed him too." 

The words stabbed through John’s heart, flensing away what humanity remained of him and leaving him staring into nothingness.

He barely registered the Valeyard stepped out, leaving him bereft on the floor, staring at Rose's body.

* * *

The Doctor stayed with the coral as she continued to crumble in upon herself. Sheer white pieces robbed of their colour fell away from her until she fit in his palm; smaller than even before he’d harvested her from the TARDIS as a last gift to John and Rose. The TARDIS suffused the small corner in which the tank sat with ideal levels of heat, sucking all humidity from the room until it resembled the Arcadian desert. He imagined fields of nurseries and the dedicated engineers and metapelots tending their charges until they were old enough to be carved into proper ships. She deserved it all and more; real levels of care instead of dying to save the life of one foolish old man. 

A foolish old man who, perhaps, deserved to bear consequences of both their actions. 

The Doctor reached into himself, summoning up the smallest tendril of regeneration energy. A finger’s worth; whoever he became in the future could surely spare a finger. Or his eyes. He would give up his eyes for the right cause and this one seemed worthier than many which came before it. The energy crawled up his throat and sat like shivering stardust in his mouth to wait in anticipation. The Doctor leaned over with infinite care and breathed it out, teasing it into the coral’s very essence and calling her back from the brink of eternity.

The coral shivered and a blush of colour swept across her craggy planes. The Doctor slumped in relief and pressed his hand against the side of the tank, revelling in her strengthening presence. 

While he doubted she would ever grow again, at least she would live. She pressed her love and trust up against his mind with childlike wonder. All barriers separating the Doctor from Rose and John were gone now; he’d become as much her parent as either of them. He would never regret it, doubtless John and Rose would certainly both have something to say about his impromptu adoption. 

Rose and John. Right. Still work to do. 

He pushed himself up and pressed his hand to the coral to silently celebrate her ongoing life. Wondrous little thing. 

The Doctor made his way to the console room, his limbs heavy with uncertainty. John might forgive him. Beyond anyone else the Doctor had encountered in his exhaustingly long life, John would understand. But Rose? Would she be furious? Irritated? Exactly how many times could he hope her to forgive his abandonment? He clung to the small hope she’d be fondly resigned. He’d find a way to make it up to both of them.

He’d hardly set foot in the console room when the Cloister Bell began to ring, the deep sweep of its terrifying resonance settling into his gut. He charged to the controls. It wouldn’t be the black hole; they were well enough away from it they’d escaped the event horizon. Then what…

The TARDIS provided his answer with panicked efficiency.

“The Vortex is collapsing?!” the Doctor shouted in disbelief at the readings. “ _How is the bloody Vortex collapsing?!_ ”

A rolling, roiling shockwave of collapsing possibilities careened towards them, leaving a blank void of settled happenstance sitting stone-like in the middle. If they didn’t get out of here, nevermind being unable to move through space and time, they’d be caught in the shockwave and written out of existence entirely. 

The Doctor’s mind flew in a thousand different directions before a cold knowledge settled in his mind. 

He slammed in the coordinates and pulled the dematerialization lever, the TARDIS landing sequence impossibly faster than usual. She’d barely set down before he jumped out the door, back in Darivya’s abandoned palace on the cursed eighth moon of Festus, to reengage Darivya’s continuity shield. For a moment, absolute silence fell deafening around him. The room itself became an anechoic chamber around him, the air suffocatingly silent until his senses stretched for stimulation and he heard the blood flowing in his veins. In his peripheral vision, he registered the door opening and slamming shut as the rippling shockwave tore through the universe and sundered its very laws.

And then the sensation ended. Sound returned. The continuity shield held. Whatever happened to the Vortex, they’d been spared its devastation, thanks only to Darivya’s tireless efforts in protecting herself from the eventuality of paradoxical squishing.

With the Vortex closed, he and the TARDIS were effectively stranded. He wasn’t certain the continuity shield would hold forever, either. The weight of implacable certainty would keep pushing down on it until beneath the weight of it crushed the TARDIS—effectively a stone stabbing into the foot of whatever caused the disaster—completely. 

If the Vortex truly had been sundered it meant Rose… Rose must be… 

_Rose._ Inextricably tied to the Vortex through Bad Wolf, destined to live throughout all the eternities, _as long as the Vortex existed_. With the universe cut away from its touch, the Vortex may as well have been snuffed out entirely. 

And John. Through the intensity of his grief, the Doctor ached for his husband. John would be devastated. 

No. He refused to think upon the consequences of the Vortex collapsing. _Refused_. To avoid losing Clara, he’d been prepared to fracture time itself. He could do no less for John and Rose, and he couldn’t let himself fall into darkness yet, so long as the fucking cat remained in the box. 

His gaze fixed on the remains of the extruder, his mind a million miles and several lifetimes away. 

And then he registered Rassilon standing next to the door.

The Doctor stared at him. Rassilon stared at the Doctor until, finally, a wryish, condescending smirk crept along the other Time Lord’s face.

“Well,” Rassilon said. “I might’ve guessed you’d end up back here.” 

The Doctor glowered. “You won’t be rid of me so easily.” 

“Nothing with you is ever easy,” Rassilon scoffed. As the Doctor’s frown deepened, Rassilon muscled on. “Did you ever bother to understand my issue with you, Doctor? It's not your want of stimulation—that's fine. Understandable, even. We are the true inheritors of time, and all of us share the inherent need to command it. It’s the unseemly manner of your hypocrisy which astounds me. I know you don't believe us to be gods, and laugh at those of us who appreciate ourselves as deific. In this, you are mistaken. By your nature, you are superior, and allowing mere humans to assume otherwise is ghastly. 

"You cannot truly claim to be on equal footing to your companions. You may consider them capable, or industrious, in the way humans speak of ants. Make no mistake, Doctor, these would-be peers are nothing but over-glorified pets, and pretending otherwise is unfair to all involved. When it comes down to it, your superiority in its nature deprives them of their free will. And pretending otherwise merely makes you cruel." 

“Congratulations,” the Doctor scoffed. “Does hating me make you feel better? Validated?”

“No,” Rassilon snarled, stoicism falling away to reveal the maelstrom beneath his calm exterior. 

“Then stow it. Stop wasting your breath on my faults and tell me what happened so I can bloody well fix it.”

“Fix it? How do you intend to do that? I will allow for quick thinking when it comes to Darivya’s shield, and now there’s nothing else we can do. A miserable, slogging existence even after we leave here and then… where will we go? Back to Gallifrey? I think not.” 

“Why?” the Doctor asked. Rassilon frowned. “Why wouldn’t you want to return to Gallifrey?”

Rassilon’s lip curled. “I suspect we’d find it much altered.” 

“You know what caused this,” the Doctor accused. 

Rassilon remained implacably stoic. “If I admit to it, will you accept my word there’s nothing to be done?” 

“Absolutely not.” 

Rassilon inhaled a quick sigh; from anyone else it would have been an exaggerated expression of irritation—a heavy-handed roll of the eyes delivered with punched-out irritation. “My… dislike of you intensified severely after my exile from Gallifrey. All I want—all I have ever wanted—is the prosperity and ascendency of the Time Lords. I have gone to lengths you cannot imagine to ensure it, and you have laid me low in response. It is unpardonable. And yet, regardless of what I attempt, you find a way to overcome. Your confessional dial should have kept you trapped far longer than the four billion years you waste my time whinging over. Turning my own soldiers on me, the rightful president of Gallifrey? Treason, and yet I am the one in exile. You even confounded the one thing which might have saved us from the Time War, because you _cannot_ look at the universe with any objectivity. Your perceptions are coloured by the aggravating high-handed morality to which you subscribe. Nothing anyone else does matters even in the slightest to you. You are singularly the most selfish, arrogant being in this entire universe, and yet you are applauded for it. And,” Rassilon threw up a hand as the Doctor leapt to try and interrupt him, his momentum nigh-unstoppable, “Before you insist on denying it, I suggest you consider yourself from the position of anyone with whom you’ve dealt who hasn’t explicitly operated within the parameters you have deemed acceptable.”

Usually the Doctor delivered the speeches. He found he didn’t care to be on the receiving end. However, having listened, there existed only a single conceivable point to which Rassilon could be coming. “And this is why you set out to destroy me?” 

“You’ve proven I can’t. I merely set things in motion to have someone else do it. The only person who had the slightest chance of it: yourself.” The Doctor’s brow drew in confusion. “I arranged for one of my faithful to acquire a certain planar orb cage from our archives. One which held another Gallifreyan with a particular dislike of you. 

“I unleashed The Valeyard.”

Icy dread filled the Doctor’s stomach. “He’s dead.” 

“He was. I used my own regeneration energy to revive him, which unbeknownst to me, shared with him a substantial amount of information I would have remained confidentially locked away in my own mind. Shortly after his resurrection, he suggested in order to defeat you, he needed to better understand you. Thus we used your own tendency towards interference against you and summoned you to Essquius.”

“The labyrinth,” the Doctor murmured. If the Valeyard truly possessed his memories, accessing the TARDIS to get the particle collider aboard would’ve been trivial. Hell, for all the Doctor knew, he’d been responsible for releasing the virus which compromised the containment around the Dalek AI. 

“The Valeyard used the advanced psychic mechanisms of the local population to absorb your memories. All of them. And from there? I’ve no idea. He stranded me on this rock and disappeared. I can imagine having my insight and your memory has given him all the tools he needs to position himself as the most powerful creature in this entire universe.

“Yes, Doctor. I know what happened. Or, at least, I can speculate. Whatever the Valeyard has seen fit to do to the Vortex, we are well clear of it, and there is nothing we can do to reverse it.”

The Doctor considered the former president a moment. “You must hate me very much.” 

“While I don't enjoy expending the effort of feeling anything for you, it seems you’ve driven me to be unfortunately emotional. Yes, I hate you. More than I can ascribe words.” 

With a nod, the Doctor turned back to Darivya’s wonder of engineering. The continuity field held strong for the moment. He examined it closely, using his sonic to trace its circuitry and programming as best he could. He’d never been as great an engineer as the Disciples of Omega, though he had a dab hand at invention. 

“What are you doing?” Rassilon demanded. 

The Doctor ignored him as he managed to trace his way back to the power source. With careful precision, he zeroed in on it. 

“Doctor,” Rassilon bit out. 

“I’m glad you’re happy to sit here and rot,” the Doctor grit out, fighting down everything save dispassionate acknowledgement. “I have too much stake in the universe to accept retirement quite yet.”

If he somehow reversed this, then Rose… 

Best not think about her or John at the moment. Keep the cat in the box, and all. 

As a fully contained device, the shield would require finagling; if he managed to integrate it with the TARDIS’ controls, he could feasibly use it to travel through space at least. Without access to the Vortex, however, he would still be trapped in a linear life. 

Unacceptable.

The extruder needed to go. No point recreating Darivya’s mistakes and attempting to search out a timeline where this would all be miraculously solved for him. He ripped apart its outer casing to get into the guts and buried his arms to the elbow in the impressive machinery. If he rewired what remained to the TARDIS and hooked in the shield without interrupting its power supply he’d avoid accidentally blotting himself out of existence. He’d have to cannibalize a handful of couplers from the other TARDIS, still sat inertly on the other side of the room. He suspected she would probably spare them in return for ending this half-life into which Darivya forced her. 

“You cannot be serious,” Rassilon muttered. 

“In most instances no. I’ve decided to make an exception in this case.” 

“The Valeyard has every advantage. There’s nothing you’ll be able to do to stop him.” 

“I seem to remember being told the same about you. And yet here we are.” 

He decided to ignore Rassilon, and buried his attention in circuitry and mentally cobbling together a working model. Shame Darivya exhausted her creativity in her relentless pursuit of Enoux; she truly worked incredible feats of engineering. Gallifrey would have loved to employ her skills, even after the Time War.

Hours later, he finally—hesitantly—made the last few adjustments before moving the shield into the TARDIS. If this worked, he could leave the planet instead of relying on the shield to keep him from the repercussions of the collapse. On the other hand, if he’d miscalculated, he would be subject to the same fate as every other being in the galaxy: all of history rewritten to suit a single, linear movement which might not include him at all. And certainly wouldn’t include him in this place and time. He wouldn’t even have the courtesy of the shockwave to announce the change. 

Rassilon grabbed his arm before he removed the shield from its casing. “Wait.” 

“Stop me,” the Doctor said, “And I’ll lay you so flat rugs across the planet will be envious.”

“No need to resort to violence,” Rassilon said. “Only, I’ve been trapped in this place for centuries. Assuming this works, and you don’t accidentally doom the both of us, I want to come with you.”

The Doctor actually paused in the face of his own stupefaction. “You spend how long dressing me down, and now you want to stick out your thumb for a ride?” 

“We are both Time Lords, Doctor. We may not care for one another, but at minimum we owe each other those respects, at least.” 

Unbelievable. “You realize, in this point and time, there’s practically nowhere in the universe any better off than this? Gallifrey won’t be completely settled. Hell, humanity won’t even master the Oldowan for another century.” 

“At least I’ll have a different view.” 

The Doctor huffed. “Fine.” He refocused his attention on the shield. “If this goes sideways, I want you to know I’ve always believed you the lord of all prats, and there’s a more than passing chance the universe will be better off with you erased from existence.” 

“You used to show proper respect,” Rassilon muttered.

“I used to have the option of walking away,” the Doctor countered. He adjusted his sonic and mentally refocused himself. With painstaking care, he withdrew the shield from its case and braced himself against the likelihood of sudden irrevocable death. 

It hummed in his hand; a small thing—not the size of a billiard ball—and hot in his palm. He carried it with painstaking care to the TARDIS and placed it down into the mechanism he’d built into the console to hold it. The TARDIS shook violently, but only for a moment before the shield settled into place. 

“All right,” he said as Rassilon stepped aboard. “Let’s head to Gallifrey.”

“What? Why?”

“Because if the Valeyard truly has all my memories along with whatever it is knocking around your head you believe passes for a brain, it’s where he’ll be waiting.”

* * *

The desert stretched out endless around him, empty. Only bare sand remained where the Citadel once stood, their glorious architecture consigned to dust. 

Gallifrey fallen once more.

Or, perhaps, never risen in the first place. 

"As I said, much altered."

Ah, yes. His would-be companion. 

"It's all gone," the Doctor said, needing to break the silence. The words escaped into the quiet around them, swallowed up and whisked away by the air.

"It doesn’t exist," Rassilon corrected. "At this point in history, the earliest of our progenitors haven’t even discovered Wild Endeavour, and even if they do there’s the chance that they will not evolve as we did, without access to the Vortex. Gallifrey as she was is now confined to our memories alone. Not another soul in this entire universe will remember her." He paused, "Well, save the one who did this. I imagine his memories remain unaltered."

"The Valeyard," the Doctor spat. 

"The Valeyard." 

"And you saw fit to gift him renewed life for the sole purpose of destroying mine." 

"It should have worked. He has more reason to hate you than even I. And yet, it seems I underestimated his need for control. Or, perhaps, I engendered its growth by adding my own regeneration energy and showing him a glimpse of what he aspired to. Whatever his motives it seems useless to speculate now."

"Why useless?"

"Because unless you and I are improbably unlucky, we shall never see the Valeyard again. If he has truly discovered a means of travelling through time without the use of the Vortex, then he alone enjoys greater power than any other being in the universe, and he hates us both. We can content ourselves with the knowledge he believes us to be dead and be grateful for the favour. If he were to discover we'd survived, he would come for us. It's no small miracle he chose not to witness it in person."

"He placed a particle collider on the TARDIS in hopes of destroying me. As far as he’s concerned, I didn't survive." 

"Well, one can't accuse him of being unthorough, I suppose." 

"Count your blessings. Any thorougher and we'd both be dead."

Rassilon's lips pressed together in a moue of distaste. "It's a vast universe, regardless of how small we feel it when we have the power to travel its expanse in the blink of an eye. We might live the rest of our lives, however long they are now destined to be, without encountering him again. I suggest you find somewhere livable and enjoy a long-overdue retirement."

The Doctor crouched down, scooping a handful of sand and cupping it in his palm. How long had he lived with the knowledge he would never touch her soil again? Bittersweet, now Gallifrey was nothing but. "Is that your plan? To hide?" He refused to hide. Or run. Not when he had even the mingiest chance of undoing the Valeyard’s work.

(And undoing what it must’ve done to John and Rose.) 

"I find myself without other viable options." Rassilon folded his hands in front of him. "Rokhandi will do for me, I think. A firm hand in this point in history and certain undesirable outcomes can be avoided." 

As he began to extol the virtues of an unperverted Rokhandian landscape, the Doctor gazed across Wild Endeavour. Perhaps the last time he would see it, if things went pear-shaped. Little wonder he'd always hated pears and pear-adjacent metaphors, since the very shape of them seemed to inspire descriptions of catastrophe. 

"Go hide, then," the Doctor said, staring at the empty space inhabited by the ghost of the Citadel. 

"While you, I assume, do something monumentally stupid, as always." 

The Doctor hopped up, allowing the sands of Gallifrey to slip through his fingers. "As always." He jogged back to the TARDIS, Rassilon quick on his heels. "I'm not going to Rokhandi, Rassilon."

Rassilon grabbed the TARDIS door before it closed upon him, glaring fiercely at the Doctor. "You'd leave me here, stuck on this rock?" 

"You're welcome to come," the Doctor shrugged. 

Rassilon paused, gripping the TARDIS door. "Where?"

"Galbran," the Doctor said. 

He took note of the moment realization crept into Rassilon’s eyes. “What do you think you can possibly accomplish by this? No one ever successfully completed the Galbranian Proposals. Do you think you’re just going to sweep in and figure out the key to travelling in such a manner?”

“Yes.”

Rassilon stared at him and, with a thousand microexpressions suggesting the only thing between the Doctor’s ears happened to be particularly bland pudding, stepped into the TARDIS.

* * *

The Galbranians only concurrently existed with Gallifrey for a few centuries before their home planet and most of their civilization fell to inescapable environmental change. While they managed simple space travel, they rarely explored the galaxy outside a few automated spacecraft they sent out to examine the universe beyond the boundaries of their local system; a small collection of mostly inhabitable planets ringing a red dwarf hardly warm enough to reheat a cuppa. After the devastation of their planet, they never recovered enough to become significant players in the universe at large, and their failure to master time manipulation rendered them interesting but ultimately irrelevant in the greater scheme of the cosmos. A few of their descendants remained tucked away in small pockets of civilization, but at this time in the past they were still largely located on Galbran. Good thing, too; if he’d shown up before they’d managed space travel, all this would be for naught.

When they arrived on the last days of Galbran, the Doctor found himself instantly beset by wicked cold, the impacts of their decaying climate accosting him with subzero weather and angry whipping winds. It wouldn’t be long before they lost all access to what meagre warmth their small red dwarf provided. Galbran’s climate staved off all but the hardiest species; little wonder the artifacts which survived their extinction were all fished out from beneath half-melted glaciers centuries after the fact. 

As it was, the civilization still stood despite the snow burying them inch-by-inch. 

They’d landed as close to one of the local universities as possible, a disparate collection of buildings near-buried beneath the snow. The Doctor managed to stumble into the closest one, shaking off the cold threatening to stiffen his limbs despite his claims to superior biology, Rassilon close behind him, annoyance digging deep furrows into his brow. The Doctor sighed when he saw the banner proudly declaring it to be the facility dedicated to art, and trudged back into the cold. 

Three—three!—buildings later, and they finally stumbled into the sciences building. And this university in particular—his method of choosing one essentially consisted of tossing a dart at a map and hoping he’d found one with the right credentials—seemed woefully underwhelming. 

“May I help you?” 

The Doctor turned towards the voice. Galbranians were human-shaped, by and large, with hefty spiraling horns and caprine facial features. They also didn’t go in for the gender binary; he suspected the size of the horns said something about their standing in society, he couldn’t claim to understand their social structure with any confidence. 

“Yes, I’m here to examine your resources on time travel.” Best to get it out of the way. 

The Galbranian blinked. “May I ask the basis of your interest?” 

“Practical application.” 

They scoffed. “Sir, while an entertaining hypothesis, in all honesty: time travel is impossible. In all my years researching it, I’ve never managed to make the calculations work.” 

“You’re the expert, then?”

“The foremost in the field.” 

He managed to suppress a fond smile; the TARDIS was as determined to fix things as the Doctor himself. Rassilon scoffed behind him, fortunately deigning not to comment. For all his scepticism, he had nonetheless followed.

“I’m the Doctor,” he told them. “And I am deeply invested in helping you make it work.” 

The Galbran, “Professor Sziëmens. Please call me Zee,” obviously knew their way around a lab. Promising yet obviously incomplete calculations covered a nearby psychic whiteboard. The Doctor and Rassilon both zeroed in on the meat and potatoes of it without hesitation.

“The entire premise of my research is based on the theory that time operates not as a straight line, instead it can be considered—” 

“A big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff?” the Doctor offered. 

Rassilon snorted, his penchant towards subvocal communication a refreshing break from the sound of his voice.

“I was going to say a circle,” Zee gently corrected, “One with a break in it.” The whiteboard responded, drawing a circle with a significant bit of arc missing from the top. Understandably flawed, nonetheless intriguing as a concept. “The entire basis of my research is finding a way to connect the two ends, and then move along the circle until you reach the point you’re looking for.” 

They launched into their explanation, the Doctor following along with the occasional nod as Rassilon moved closer to examine the calculations. They offered far more details than any of the research previously unearthed in future excavations of Galbran. As a basis for time travel, it didn’t offer the most efficient way to go about things. Little wonder they’d failed to make it happen. They were far too focused on quantum tunnelling and not enough on leveraging the universe’s own inertia to launch potential travelers across the gap. 

Ah, there it was. 

The whiteboard scrambled to keep up with him as he focused his attention on filling in the gaps of Zee’s theories. It missed a few ticks—he found himself frequently frustrated having to refocus his efforts of five steps previous to allow it to catch up—yet overall far more efficient than the chalkboard he kept on the TARDIS. Less fun, though. The chalkboard would stay. 

Rassilon pushed him away, “You need to adjust for the temporal instabilities the Vortex would have automatically corrected by nature of its existence.” 

His own thoughts burst onto the whiteboard, erasing and correcting along the way as their ideas tumbled over one another to come to fruition. At one point, a hot drink appeared at the Doctor’s elbow, steam continuing to curl from the surface long after the ambient temperature in the room should have cooled it. 

“Incredible,” Zee whispered as they completed the correct algorithm. “This would work.” They frowned. “Hypothetically, anyway. There would be no way of guaranteeing you’d be able to find the point in time you’re attempting to reach. It would be insurmountably difficult to do the necessary calculations while in motion, and without having real access to the inertial speeds, you’d never be able to anticipate how quickly you’d be moving. Not to mention there isn’t a spacecraft capable of withstanding the stress.” With a glance towards Rassilon, they touched the Doctor’s arm. “It’s still excellent work.” Their features rendered emoting anything resembling a smile impossible. Their face lit up all the same. “In a perfect world, the ‘practical application,’ as you called it, would be stunning.” 

He couldn’t remember Professor Sziëmens as even a footnote in Galbranian history. This university, along with the rest of the planet, would be wiped out when the endless winter froze out what remained of the civilization. The whiteboard would be cleared of its contents once they died, and without a record of Galbranian success in unlocking time travel, they’d never pass the information along. It surely wouldn’t hurt to leave it here. To allow them to learn from it. Perhaps no one ever heard of them because they’d left Galbran behind. 

“Thank you, Doctor,” Zee whispered. They took his hand, and their eyes saddened. “And may peace find you, whenever you’re going.” 

It took him a long moment to remember Galbranians cultivated a particular talent for touch-conducted empathy. Hopefully, what they felt from him was his sincere appreciation, and not the dark, bubbling rage beneath the surface. 

They seemed poised to say more when their entire body tensed, focus zeroing in on a point behind the Doctor. With a feeling of inevitability pressing down on him, the Doctor turned to find Rassilon holding a blade in his hand, his face as stoic and inscrutable as ever. The tip split into two wickedly curved points and emitted a sickly orange light. The Doctor remembered seeing it clenched in Darivya’s hand before she fell. 

“What are you doing, you stupid bastard?” the Doctor demanded. 

“I will not allow this opportunity to be squandered in your madcap attempt to stop the Valeyard,” Rassilon stated. In many of his previous incarnations, madness sat heavy behind his eyes—the weight of the Time War hanging immutably upon him, an unstoppable march of travesties eating away at him in a parade of convoluted rationalizations. Whatever transpired since the Doctor exiled him from Gallifrey, it either returned a certain amount of cognizance or iced over the madness until it came around back to the appearance of sanity.

The Doctor’s eyes flicked to the blade. With a twitch of his hand, Rassilon snicked the air. The two prongs scissored shut, and Zee vanished from the Doctor’s side without even a blink or shudder of the air around them. Eyes wide, the Doctor returned his full attention to Rassilon. 

“Darivya used this, once. Her would-be lover began to turn his eyes on her before settling his attentions on another. She created this as a means of dealing with the pain.”

The writing on the whiteboard faded away, leaving only the contributions of the Doctor and Rassilon. The Doctor remembered them; the blade hadn’t erased Zee completely, only cut their physical form away from reality. How Enoux must’ve ached for his lost love before Darivya reset the loop.

“Do you intend to use that on me?” the Doctor demanded. 

“Do you know how many times I’ve attempted to destroy you?” Rassilon returned. “And it never works. I’m sure, somehow, were I to make the attempt here and now, I would once again be thwarted. Perhaps your TARDIS might crash through the side of the building and crush me. Or by freakish coincidence, an earthquake would swallow me up. You enjoy a curiously blessed life, Doctor, and I don’t see the point of wasting more time in trying to end it. I will be leaving in your TARDIS without you. And despite all my previous failures, if you make any attempt to stop me, I will try one more time.”

The Doctor considered him closely. “Well, then.” 

Snakebite quick, the Doctor scooped up the tea still hot at his side and hurled it towards Rassilon’s head. 

The former President managed to dodge, but the distraction gave the Doctor an opportunity to lunge. He wrapped his hand around Rassilon’s where it gripped the hilt of the dagger, holding fast when Rassilon tried to yank it back and away. Rage—an old friend the Doctor desperately tried to suppress—reared up until the Doctor’s body shook with the power of it. He ploughed his elbow into Rassilon’s jaw, and when the other Time Lord stumbled back and away, the Doctor snapped up his leg to land a solid blow to Rassilon’s stomach. 

Rassilon’s hold on the blade finally loosened, and the Doctor grabbed it up. 

Tempting, murderously tempting, to put an end to the other Time Lord right now. It would be terribly easy; the mechanisms within the hilt whirred as if the blade itself called out for another life in sacrifice. 

What would it mean for Gallifrey—for the Doctor, and the lives he’d touched—when he managed to restore the Vortex? Too many variables rampaged through his mind, not the least of which the great impact Rassilon had on the entire universe when he’d become the first of the Time Lords. No. He couldn’t risk it. 

“I don’t commit murder on a whim,” the Doctor stated. At least, he added privately, not until he found the Valeyard. “Best bundle up. It’s going to get colder.” 

He left Rassilon stunned on the floor, and retreated back to the TARDIS. 

The Doctor kept his arms wrapped around his middle as he slogged through drifts already impossibly higher since his short time in the university. The TARDIS stood a blue beacon before him, the anticipatory air hanging about her impossible to ignore. He stood outside the door only a moment before casting the blade into the highest of the drifts to be forgotten under mountains of snow. When he stumbled inside, the lights flickered.

“No,” he said aloud, mostly for his own edification, “We can’t go to them yet.” The TARDIS seemed to sag, but wouldn’t argue. She knew why as well as he did. He’d done his utmost to keep his mind off the reality of the situation: if he went in search of John and Rose right now, all he could hope to find…

All he _would_ find… 

No. Better focus on the root of the problem.

Zee’s lack of access wasn’t merely to the impossible computational power of the TARDIS, but the telepathic circuits to allow him to zero in on the exact point in time where he might find the Valeyard. 

The molten steel of repressed anger bubbled up, fuelled by Rassilon’s attempt to stop him. The Doctor’s hand tightened on the controls as he entered the necessary information to utilize Zee’s now-completed calculations.

He’d brought death to Zee’s door. Unintentionally, perhaps, but when had such things ever been truly intentional? Another life for which he now shouldered the burden of its end. His hand clenched up into a fist. He would take the time to remember them later, as he did with all the lives caught up in the collateral of his existence. 

Restoring the Vortex remained his first priority. Afterwards… then he would mourn.


	20. Fall of the Damn'd Blade: Part Two

Twenty-two minutes. 

The Valeyard left John staring at Rose’s… at Rose for twenty-two minutes. And the entire time, she hadn’t moved. Hadn’t twitched. Her chest neither lifted nor fell. He absolutely refused to accept it to mean she was gone. Not a single universe in all the multitudes of infinity existed in which he would accept Rose’s death. He glued his attention to her. Willing her to breathe. He focused on the connection between them; the fragile spidersilk psychic link which usually only manifested in impressions and feelings. The one thing he’d relied on since springing fully formed into creation like Athena out of Zeus’ head, a god of war fully armoured. Well, metaphorically armoured, anyway. 

The Vortex wasn’t gone. Couldn’t be. The Valeyard cut ties to it, perhaps, but not even his monstrous engineering could truly destroy it. It followed Rose would be the same. He would bring her back. And then they would both find the Doctor.

For the entirety of those centuries-long twenty-two minutes he’d focused all his attention on the place in his mind where his connection to Rose once quietly thrived. He visualized twisting a needle against its absence, burrowing into the empty void as though it were a piece of thick leather and trying to coax the point through to find her again. 

Twenty-five minutes, and in a single, brilliant moment, he finally poked the needle through. Molten gold poured through his mind, the distant howl of a wolf nearly indistinguishable from the utter awe filling him at the Vortex’s restoration. Or, partially restored, and to him alone. The Valeyard’s Time Glaive still crackled with power and kept the rest of the universe severed. 

All the majesty of it paled against the sight of Rose taking in a heaving breath and sitting up, obviously disoriented, and wonderfully alive. Cool relief swept across his tattered nerves. He forgot himself a mo’ and reached for her, his hand igniting with pain when he touched the barrier between them. 

His pained shout drew her attention his way. “John,” Rose gasped. She struggled to her feet, unsteady on shaking legs and falling when her strength failed her. 

“Rose,” he whispered her name for the hundredth time through a throat easing back away from the tightness of grief. He dropped to the floor, pressing his forehead against the ground as the sheer enormity of it swept across him. Rose was alive. Rose _lived_. 

“John,” Rose repeated uncertainly. He forced himself to lift his head. “What happened?”

“You…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it. Not for a single moment would the word fall from his lips. “You were gone.” It still sat sour and unconscionable on his tongue. 

“There’s something wrong,” Rose said. She finally managed to get her legs beneath her, though she still stumbled as she stood. She barely managed to catch herself against a nearby wall. 

“We’re still cut off from the Vortex,” John said. He watched with a keen eye as she shuffled over to the Time Glaive, regarding it with a heavy-browed frown. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. Her eyes flickered gold for a moment, and John once more felt the rush of it flow through him. 

Giving up on her inspection of the Glaive, Rose moved to his side and dropped down across the barrier. Close enough to touch, yet impossible to hold. Maybe while whittling at their broken bond he’d completely snapped. He ached to take her into his arms and reassure himself she was real and permanent and physical. Not just a figment of a grieving mind constructing an elaborate fantasy in which she’d been restored to him. 

Well. At least in his madness he’d keep good company. 

“Let’s get you out of there,” Rose said, fingers twitching towards his and snatching back when they grazed the field between them. She glowered at the door. “He has my sonic.” She gusted out an annoyed sigh, and John realized their breathing had synchronized. He took a deep breath and held it a moment, interested to note when she did the same. However it occurred, he now kept her tethered to this world. And so help him, if they never restored the Vortex, he would do everything to make sure she stayed.

“It’s coded against sonic interference anyway. But it’s not a field maintained from an indefinite distance. The controls have to be close by.” 

Rose stood again to explore the room, occasionally pausing to catch herself on the walls or stray pieces of mutilated equipment. 

She paused all together when a rumbling filled the area from outside. Her attention snapped to John, who returned the half-feral smile creeping across her features. 

The Doctor had arrived.

* * *

_The Valeyard_ the Doctor thought wildly, pushing his memories of the would-be Time Lord into the telepathic circuits. _Howling jakey twonk._ If he had a hope of picking the right moment to undo the severing of the Vortex, he needed to find the Valeyard. Fortunately with time trapped linearly for the majority of the universe, locating the one other person capable of moving through it should be relatively simple. 

The TARDIS tumbled through space and time, unable to materialize and dematerialize. Whomsoever used Zee’s particular brand of cobbled-together time travel would continue to age as they traipsed along the roundabout. That must’ve been what Zee meant when they’d brought up the need of a perfect world. The interior of the TARDIS protected her passengers from the passage of time while moving through it. Without her exceptional technological capabilities—or, indeed, the usual shortcut through the Vortex—they would be fully exposed to its effects. 

The TARDIS whipped wildly along the path until it slammed to a halt, not so much landing as crashing to the ground. The Doctor straightened, withdrew his hands from the telepathic circuits, and strode out the door. 

Regardless of the Valeyard’s intentions, the Citadel still stood, significantly changed from the last time the Doctor beheld its glory; captured in time by the diminished transduction barriers, protecting what remained from the consequential ravages of the severed Vortex. The last few stones were only kept in place by what appeared to be a localized transduction barrier. Only an empty and unoccupied desert surrounded the diminished monument, this ruined house of fallen gods; an emptied Olympus left to moulder. 

Every step between the TARDIS and the Citadel lasted a small eternity; hot wind whipped grains of sand through his hair, unimpeded by the space where multitudes of buildings once stood. Even during the War, Daleks and soldiers flooding the streets, signs of life still thrived. The vast expanse of sand choked him as effectively as the sand-filled air, and yet he continued forward. 

On the steps of the Citadel, a lone figure dressed in red awaited him on the half-crumbled stairs. The steps began with an immaculate descent, only to disappear into a dune halfway down—the edges of the barrier, the Doctor assumed. As he watched, the figure whisked into the Citadel, the silent invitation to follow hanging in the air to weigh down reality. The Doctor stopped at the bottom of the steps and craned his neck to examine the door before him. 

He missed his sunglasses in times such as these. 

The first few steps crumbled to sand beneath his feet as he ascended. It pulled at his leg in a sucking attempt to bring him crashing to the ground and it only a half-jump sideways and dextrous trip upwards forestalled the quicksand-like effect. 

A shiver of cool cosmic certainty washed over him as he passed through the limits of the barrier. 

Bodies lay strewn about the hallways inside the doors, Time Lords one and all. The Doctor crouched down beside a woman—a general he recognized from his past visit. He scanned the body, lips pursing as his sonic came back with mixed results. Dead but not dead. Frozen in time; a fallen monument to the Valeyard’s work. He tucked his sonic back into his pocket and continued forward. He knew where the Valeyard would be. 

The other man waited for him in the chambers of the High Council, standing atop the raised dais and projecting a condescending air of belonging. The Doctor halted in the doorway of the room to watch him while an impossibility of moments all flitted away from them both. 

The Valeyard regarded him with disdain. “Somehow, I knew you’d show up. Isn’t there a human saying about pennies?” 

“They’re about as welcome as your manky face,” the Doctor returned.

The Valeyard rolled his eyes. “Must we be childish?” 

“Oh, excuse me! I’m only trying to speak at a level you’d understand.” He took another step forward. 

The Valeyard glowered, though his face smoothed out into neutrality after a long moment, save for the irritating smirk hiding in the corner of his mouth. “I do find it interesting you came to Gallifrey first, instead of seeking out your… companions.” 

The Doctor’s jaw clenched. “What do you know of it?” 

“You must have realized when Vortex collapsed what it meant for your wife. It’s why you came here, is it not? Instead of going in search of them and finding naught but corpses.”

“When I finish with you the damage will be undone.”

“Perhaps. Yet, _if_ it comes to pass—and it is an impressively large ‘if’—and you figure out how I dismantled the universe’s connection to the Vortex, you’ll still live the rest of your days with the knowledge you let her die.” His infuriating RP announced the words with perfect diction and surgical sharpness. 

“Then again, you’ve never really been able to keep either of them safe, have you? I feel you knew it when you abandoned them in a supposedly inaccessible universe to die. Or allowing a Dalek AI on the TARDIS. Quite the ticking timebomb, if you’ll pardon the pun.” 

“You?” the Doctor demanded, suspicions confirmed. 

“I decided it would be the easiest way to destroy you. I suppose nothing worthwhile is ever easy.” 

He refused to take the bait. If he gave into his rage even an inch, it would take a mile and he hadn’t the time for thoughtlessness. “And Missy?” 

“We made an excellent team. Unfortunately her designs for you involved your continued existence, obviously putting them at cross-purposes of my own. You know, when she took the sphere from me, I half hoped she’d take care of my problem herself. Pity you managed to confound her, though I’m giving to understand you’ve made quite the habit of it.”

“If I were you, I’d start running.” The Doctor lunged forward, only for an invisible barrier to spring up in his way. He whipped out his sonic to take it down when he heard the buzz of another, familiar device humming nearby. 

_Rose._

His eyes shot upwards to find the Valeyard in possession of her sonic, the tip glowing bright pink as he aimed it the Doctor’s way. It should’ve been impossible for him to use, John coded to Rose’s unique biosignature. Then again, who knew how much he’d fiddled with it while waiting in this extravagant crypt. 

“Where did you get that?” 

“I took it from her shortly before her death,” the Valeyard replied. His movements with the sonic became deliberate and sure. “Wonderful of you to leave them behind for me. All the work I put into trying to destroy you, and as it turns out, all I needed to do was blot out two trifling little lives.”

Once again rage threatened to bubble its way up through him; he forced it down through will alone. He refused to allow himself to become distracted by it. 

“What are you hoping to do with it?” the Doctor demanded. He hoped his face conveyed how utterly idiotic he considered the entire situation, and hid his desperation. “If someone could be killed with a sonic screwdriver, I would’ve tripped over my own feet and done away with myself centuries ago. No sonic, especially _hers_ is capable of killing.” 

The Valeyard hummed out a bitten-off chuckle. “It doesn’t have to kill you to hurt you, Doctor.” The Valeyard artfully spun it about his fingers and aimed it upwards, drawing the Doctor’s attention towards the top of the Citadel, where a ship appeared to hover above the top of the open-air chamber. The dark monstrosity—the same ship in which Rassilon escaped when the Doctor exiled him from Gallifrey—sat just inside the limited transduction barrier, poised as a dark raptor against the sunburned sky. The ship dropped down, making the entire Citadel shake through its significantly lessened defenses. 

"There's still life on this rock. I've made sure of it," the Valeyard said. His thumb rested delicately on the side of the sonic. "I've programmed the engines on the ship to begin gradual degradation on my command. I estimate it would take twenty-six minutes and fourteen seconds before the engines lose complete integrity and release a storm of radiation. Would you venture to guess as to how far it can coast in twenty-six minutes and fourteen seconds?" 

The Valeyard's smug smile stretched across his face, his eyes utterly empty. 

"While I’ve gone to great lengths to ensure they never truly become our progenitors, I doubt you want an additional million lives added to your tally of the dead."

* * *

“Got it!” Rose crowed, throwing her weight behind a heavy lever hooked into the room controls. The pressure behind the thing resisted her for only a moment before lifting. 

Rose sensed more than heard the biometric cage drop from around John, followed suddenly by his body colliding with hers as he dashed across the room to sweep her into his arms and press his mouth to hers in a desperate kiss. Her breath caught, lungs robbed of air from the hard squeeze of his arms about her and the harder press of his mouth. It didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. Not when she had him in her arms. 

“Never again,” he told her hair when he finally tore his lips from hers, pressing his mouth against the crown of her head and half-muffling his voice. “Rose. Never again.”

“I love you,” she whispered, holding as tight as possible. She wanted to hold him forever to stop his terrible trembling, but forced herself to reluctantly pull back. “We need to find the Doctor.” 

“The Glaive,” John argued, turning his attention to the vast collection of patchwork machinery. “If we want to help him, truly, we need to destroy it and restore the connection to the Vortex.”

Rose frowned. “Then we split up? I can go find him…” She paused when John’s eyes filled with sick panic and he clutched her tighter to him. He tensed, and she felt his jaw clench against the side of her face as he half-mouthed at her temple, silently repeating a mantra she’d little hope of understanding. 

Finally he drew back, though his hands remained tight on her arms. She picked the thoughts out of his mind easier than ever before: his temptation to _keep her in sight_ and his begrudging acceptance when he decided there wasn’t a world out there in which he’d ever try to restrict her. “Go. Find him. I’ll work on this.” 

Her wonderful, terrified, imperfect man. Rose kissed him again and turned on her heel to go in search of her other one.

* * *

“Stop,” the Doctor ordered. 

"Oh, now you wish to speak on my level, Doctor?" the Valeyard demanded. 

“You can’t do this,” the Doctor said, deceptively calm as his insides boiled with rage. How dare he? _How fucking dare he?!_ Millions of lives held hostage for his? What if the Doctor had died on the TARDIS, hmm? (The follow up, which sat at the base of the Doctor’s brain stem: would he have sought out Rassilon and attempted the same trade? He would have found himself disappointed.) “I won’t allow it.”

“Not one to condone genocide unless you’re the one perpetrating it?" the Valeyard returned. The Doctor's entire face froze in a masque of bewildered horror, winning himself a canny smirk. "I have your memories, Doctor. _All_ of them. I have seen all the atrocities you've committed and justified to yourself. Little wonder you've tipped your cap at Rose and John—the three of you make a merry trio of murderers. I defy any of you to look me in the eye and tell me you aren't."

The Doctor’s teeth clenched around words in vain for only a moment before they volcanically exploded out of him. “Do you think you can say a single thing to me I haven’t said to myself a million times? You are a fly buzzing past my ear telling me about the rain when I have stood in the downpour for centuries. I have never disrespected the victims of my sins by forgetting who they were.”

The Doctor tipped his head until their eyes met. "But no matter what those sins are, they are mine to carry. Not yours to shove in my face. You cannot parade them before me and expect me to cringe at the sight of them, because I face them every single day and do not cower."

The Valeyard flushed, lip twitching into the beginning curl of a sneer. If he wanted to shame the Doctor with his words, he obviously possessed more of Rassilon’s priggish ignorance than the Doctor’s own percipience.

“Then have another million on your conscience,” he snapped. 

His arm shot up again, Rose’s screwdriver held aloft for exactly one moment before its owner launched herself forward and tackled him to the ground.

* * *

The Glaive’s construction made John’s head buzz with duelling admiration and horror. The work poured into creating something so terribly destructive reminded him of seeing Oppenheimer’s handwritten notes: gorgeous in their theory and unfailingly evil in execution. He raced through the calculations, trying to find a way to reverse the Glaive’s effect on the Vortex.

He stumbled over a particular line of coding and froze. The universe hadn’t been severed from the Vortex at all. Blocked, perhaps, yet only dammed up. Not ripped away, as he’d feared.

He swung around and grabbed at a few of the devices built into the Glaive, manically twisting and pulling at them in a sequence he prayed to be correct. 

Because if it wasn’t, there would be such a storm all of time would quake with the battering of it.

* * *

The Valeyard hit the ground hard, Rose grappling for her sonic as the ship continued lifting up and away. She managed to get her hands on the sonic, ripping it out of his hands. 

As relief punched out of the Doctor’s chest as a hard breath knocked out of him, it caught again in his throat just as quickly. _Rose alive. Where was John?_

The Valeyard’s face contorted in silent rage and he swung at her, obviously uncomfortable with the movements as his would-be blow glanced off her neck. She twisted about and managed to aim the sonic upwards, interrupting the ship’s ascent. It loomed above them, the engines working overtime to keep it suspended in the air, the hot, vaporous exhaust blasting down upon them. 

“You’re dead,” the Valeyard hissed. He struck again, and managed to clip Rose’s chin. She attempted to roll off him, only to have him tangle a hand in her hair. He wrenched her head back, painfully, and the Doctor loosed an abortive yell as the Valeyard twisted his wrist, eliciting a pained cry in response. “I made sure of it.” 

In lieu of a response, Rose twisted about and sank her elbow into his sternum, robbing him of breath for only a moment, albeit a moment long enough to pull herself from his grasp. She left him with a handful of her hair, but got her feet under her. She whipped around and aimed the sonic at the barrier trapping the Doctor in place. He’d barely managed to escape its hold before the Valeyard leapt at Rose. He spun her around and used her own momentum against her, cracking his hand across her face and sending her barreling to the ground. He grabbed the sonic to aim it upwards. 

The Doctor whipped out his own and tried to counter the Valeyard’s attempts. Rose’s sonic received continuous improvements at John’s deft fingertips, but it had been patterned after the Doctor’s own, and its commands were easy for him to override. The ship’s engines stuttered, confounded by the dual input, and with a screaming silence, cut out altogether. 

“Rose!” the Doctor screamed. 

Rose looked up in horror and jumped to her feet. The ship careened downwards, slowing as it crushed the top of the building. The momentary relief was all she needed to reach him. Grabbing for her, the Doctor sprinted out of the room, holding her tight enough to bruise. It wouldn’t matter how far they ran. While the Citadel’s construction made it the envy of the universe, no shielding in the world could protect them from the engines venting as a result of the explosion when the massive ship finally crashed. If they were lucky, their skin would only begin to boil before they both succumbed to shock. 

“Here!” the Doctor said, flinging open a door. Maybe if they made it to the lower levels, they would escape the ensuing destruction. 

They made it a metre before the universe itself suddenly seemed to take a deep breath and exhaled all at once. 

Rose screamed, her hand falling free of the Doctor’s as her eyes lit up with gold as the full weight of her connection to the Vortex came thundering back through her. The Doctor ducked into her space and wrapped long arms around her; she would _not_ shake herself apart in his arms. He wouldn’t allow it. Not after finding her alive despite all odds. 

“Rose, we need to—”

The Citadel rocked on its foundation as the ship finally crashed down. A rain of sharp-edged building material rained down upon them and the Doctor threw himself atop Rose to shield her from the wind-whipped shrapnel. One of the pieces sliced through the shoulder of his jacket and he hissed out through the pain, his hold on Rose reflexively tightening. 

And then, suddenly, the sound of the TARDIS’ engines filled his ears. 

The Doctor raised his head and watched as she materialized before him. He scooped Rose into his arms and charged forward, relieved when the door opened to reveal John waiting for them just inside. He veritably threw himself over the TARDIS threshold, narrowly avoiding the merciless torrent of debris, and shot forward towards the console. 

Within seconds, Rose began violently shaking in his arms. Her eyes flew wide and she raised her hand. The TARDIS shuddered violently and without so much as a tremble of the engines, she deposited them directly into the Vortex. 

Rose went limp. Panicked, the Doctor felt for her pulse and heaved a sigh of relief when it thrummed strong beneath his fingers. He lowered them both to the ground on shaky legs, John immediately at his side to support him. He wrapped lanky arms around the Doctor, squeezing the breath right out of him before bringing his hand to rest against Rose’s, where the Doctor was surprised to find his own fingers entwined with hers. 

“The Valeyard?” he whispered.

“Dead,” the Doctor replied.

John’s face set in a rictus of grim triumph. “ _Good_.” 

He kissed the Doctor’s temple, squeezed Rose’s hands, and stood to return to the console. The TARDIS thrummed with the return of the Vortex, practically wiggling with delight, and the continuity shield remained dull without the necessity of interference. 

“Says something I just want to stay here a while, doesn’t it?” John whispered, leaning heavily against the console, the TARDIS the only thing keeping him standing.

“A bit, yeah,” the Doctor agreed. He sighed out a long breath of regret. “We still have work to do.” 

John blinked owlishly. “Do we?” 

“The Citadel, John. With the Vortex restored, we need to make sure it still stands.” 

John sniffed. “Should do. When I undid the damage, I altered the transduction barriers as well. Everything the Valeyard wanted to prevent with the Time Glaive should’ve been undone and brought us back to status quo.” 

And yet. 

John must’ve read it in the Doctor’s face, because he heaved a sigh and pulled the dematerialization lever. 

“Odd,” he muttered. The Doctor looked up. “She’s not handling well.” 

Before the Doctor could reply, Rose groaned.

* * *

Rose felt the TARDIS rematerialize, a blissful sensation she’d feared lost along with the rest of her life. She blinked wide-eyed, a soft smile stealing across her generous lips when she saw the Doctor. John hovering just over his shoulders. Both safe. Alive. The Vortex hummed in her veins once again, restoring wonderful wholeness to the empty spaces inside her. All now put to rights. 

Except for the worried cast to the Doctor’s face. For or over her? Probably. Once everyone got completely back to rights they needed to have Words. 

For now: “Saved the world then, did we?” 

“‘We’ is a somewhat generous assessment,” the Doctor said. He bent over and captured her mouth with his own. While he still tasted like dust and fear, the passion he poured into her more than made up for it. 

“It’ll always be ‘we,’ Doctor,” John told him, his ear-to-ear grin taking up almost the entirety of his face and yet brokering no arguments. He nudged the Doctor’s shoulders and drew him up to plant an equally enthusiastic, artless kiss on the Time Lord’s lips. 

The Doctor offered her his arm as she stood, and while she squeezed it to feel the familiar fabric of his coat beneath her fingers, she didn’t need his assistance. She felt far better than she probably should, all things considered. He took her hand gently and kissed her knuckles, then stepped away to make his way towards the door.

* * *

The Citadel— _Gallifrey_ , in all her glory—returned. The silhouettes of the Time Lords drifted past the open windows, a scant glimpse at the lives all returned and blissfully unaware of their temporary extinction.

All utterly overshadowed by the horrifically burned would-be Time Lord standing in the doorway. The Doctor stared, meeting the lone remaining eye still trapped in the Valeyard's skull, bone exposed across the forehead. 

Behind him, the Doctor heard Rose and John descend into furious words, followed by footsteps charging out of the console room. The entire time, the Valeyard kept his furious half-gaze trained on the Doctor's, his shoulders heaving with the strain of his continued life. His sick silence pressed around the Doctor with atmospheric weight, until he took a staggering step forward, nearly tumbling to the floor. The Doctor caught him, wincing when an echo of the Valeyard's pain drove itself into his skull.

“You. Ruin. Everything,” he stammered out through half-melted lips. His presence explained the TARDIS’ poor handling; hanging onto her would’ve been the only avenue to escape the ultimate righting of the wrongs he’d perpetrated upon the universe. 

The Valeyard's head dropped to his chest, and he gasped out another choked breath. The heated air must’ve destroyed his lungs. He wouldn’t last long, not with the injuries he’d sustained. Death would be a mercy. 

Before the Doctor decided whether he felt merciful, the footsteps returned.

"Doctor," John said behind him, voice deprived of anything resembling humanity. "Move." 

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder, keeping his feet rooted in place. His lips drew to a thin line when he saw the sphere in John's hand, carefully held to keep himself from being sucked inside. Behind him, Rose hovered next to the console, eyes wide and unsure, still obviously dazed from her reunion with the magnificence of the Vortex. 

"John, you can't," the Doctor whispered. Not the orb cage. Not even the Valeyard’s crimes merited such a torturous punishment. 

"He killed Rose," John replied in chilling evenness. 

"It didn't stick." The attempt at humour sounded hollow even to his own ears, and did nothing to John to sway him. 

"He killed Rose." 

"John."

" _He killed Rose_!"

"And this would make it better? Trapping him in a single moment of agony for eternity?" 

John glared. "It won’t even begin to."

The Doctor stared at John. His husband stood on a precipice and should he throw himself bodily off, there would be no return. The Doctor never truly considered him a monster. He’d struggled with John’s origins, and his decision to destroy the Daleks, and yet only now did he truly see his own fountainous wrath echoed in John’s eyes. 

Oh, yes, he understood. He thought of the Family; of the unending torture to which he still subjected them. He’d committed his own atrocities in his broken days after losing Rose to Pete’s World. And he needed John to be the better man, because the only other option terrified him. 

The Doctor lowered the Valeyard to the TARDIS grating and stepped away. 

“Your decision, John.” 

John’s face twisted up, his hand clenching around the sphere. Behind him, Rose and hovered at his side, fighting to keep her face neutral. She saw the cliff as well, he recognized the understanding of it in her eyes as John crept towards its terrible edge. Neither of them could make the decision for him without robbing him of his agency and leaving the question as to whether or not he could pull himself back unanswered.

John tensed, either whether with the effort of holding himself back or in preparation to use the sphere.

“He killed Rose,” he repeated again, the icy edge absent from his voice. The words were a plea now. A cry for understanding. And, once again, the Doctor understood. 

“I’m here,” Rose whispered behind him. She wrapped her fingers around John’s bicep. “Right here, John.” 

John’s lip began to quiver. His attention flitted between Rose, the Doctor, and the Valeyard still supine on the TARDIS floor. 

He dropped the sphere. It bounced on the grating and rolled off the edge, clattering down to the floor below. He turned and buried himself in Rose’s arms, stretching out his hand behind him until the Doctor surged forward to take it, reassuring him with all he through their nascent bond. 

_We are here_ , he tried to press into John’s mind. _We will_ always _be here._

He found himself discontent with only a single point of contact. He wrapped himself around John and Rose, holding tight enough to prevent all three of them from shaking apart.

To his mild disgust, Clara, John and Rose seemed to have turned him into a hugger. How mortifying.

As he held on, he realized they would come back from this. Rose would come back fully to herself and give him a jolly good bollocking for leaving them behind once more. John would doubtless suffer from seeing her die, probably to the detriment of his already abominable sleeping habits. The Doctor himself would add the affair to his generous collection of regrets. But, together, they would make it through. 

The Valeyard whimpered and the Doctor came back to himself. He kissed Rose’s temple and brushed his knuckles across John’s cheek before extricating himself from their joint embrace. He returned to the Valeyard and knelt on the floor beside him. 

The Valeyard forced his eye open and stared at the Doctor. 

"I just wanted a worthwhile life," the Valeyard wheezed, pain filling spaces between the words with wrenching pauses.

"All lives are worthwhile," the Doctor told him. “You’ve only spent yours reaching for something you were never meant to have, all to the waste of the one you were given.” 

“You might still…” the Valeyard gasped and his words ceased as pain wracked his body, “Still help me.” 

Still share his regenerations, he meant. Despite his sudden aspirations to godhood, it seemed he would always come back to the same aching desire to take the Doctor’s regeneration energy and become a true Time Lord.

“I could,” the Doctor agreed. John hissed, and the Doctor glanced over his shoulder to see the other man’s face contorted in disgusted denial. “And once you’d regenerated, I would ask John to fetch the prison sphere back to trap you away, then drop it into the event horizon you created in your attempt to kill me. Tell me, what would you prefer?”

The Valeyard mustered up the last of his strength and hauled himself to his feet, Rose gasping with shock at the sight of his ruined body half-buckling under its own weight. The Doctor felt no such sympathy. Standing must have been easier than hanging onto the side of the TARDIS. 

“Would that I had spit in my mouth,” he muttered. He stumbled to the door and braced himself against it for one last moment. “I will _always_ be the Valeyard.” 

He passed through the door to disappear into the desert. A Gallifreyan—even a Gallifreyan who lacked the breeding of a proper Time Lord—could survive grievous injuries which would kill a human within minutes. Superior biology was not always enviable. The Doctor momentarily considered following, but held himself back. Let the Valeyard have his chosen end, if destined to end at all. 

With a last look at the Citadel, and the thriving civilization surrounding its grandeur, the Doctor closed the door. His hand stayed against it, shoring up most of his weight as his legs suddenly weakened. 

Behind him, Rose whispered, “Doctor?” 

He took a fortifying breath and turned. “Where to?” Would she ask them to be dropped back on Earth? Or a similarly welcoming planet to build a life without him? 

Rose and John looked back at him with artless, sincere and enormously expansive love. It shook him and humbled him all at once; the immense weight of it also seemed to weigh nothing at all. 

“Wherever the TARDIS wants to go,” John finally said. Beneath it all, hope warred with shame across his face. The Doctor cupped his cheek, and a fraction of the shame abated.

“Hopefully she’s in the mood for a vacation,” Rose agreed with a strained laugh she tipped up onto her toes to kiss John’s cheek. 

The Doctor took her hand, becoming the temporary focal point of their little triangle. He led them to the console and turned to entwine fingers from all three hands. 

“Wherever the wind takes us?” he offered. 

With a shared smile, fragile but nonetheless sincere, they all pulled down the dematerialization lever, and threw themselves to the stars.

>   
> Love calls - everywhere and always.  
> We're sky bound.  
> Are you coming?
> 
> ― Rumi  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has read, commented and left kudos on this. I appreciate every bit of feedback I've received. :)


	21. The Epilogue (Husbands of River Song, Redux)

"Did you get a haircut?" Rose asked, bowing over the Doctor's shoulder to examine herself in the mirror. The Doctor couldn't help pressing a kiss to her neck, then catching the responding giggle that dropped from her lips with his own. She smelled of her favourite perfume, wisps of osmanthus, lilac and amber drifting about her hair and neck. She'd matched her red velvet dress with John's tie. Whatever they had planned, it was doubtless going to be memorable. 

"I did," he agreed. "It's almost Christmas, after all." 

"Will be soon," John agreed. He passed by, still fiddling with his tie. Neither Rose nor the Doctor offered to help him; they'd both learned the danger of _that_ before. Something about holding onto the tie and pulling him close and. Well. If Rose and John had an agenda, best stick to it. "And that's your best suit, if I'm not mistaken." 

"You are not," the Doctor said, finger still itching to help John with his attempt at a trinity knot despite the potential consequences. He frowned. "You're sure I can't come along?" 

"It wouldn't be much of a surprise if you did," Rose reminded him. She pressed her lips to his forehead, where undoubtedly a smear of nude lipstick would remain long after she and John left. "We won't be an hour. Promise." 

"I'm sure the TARDIS can find ways to cheer you up," John said. He ducked down to kiss the Doctor as well. 

"An hour," the Doctor repeated. 

"Sixty-three minutes at most," John said. 

Rose cupped his cheek to turn his head and kiss him again. "I promise, it's worth the wait." 

"Very well, then. Though what on Mendorax Dellora is interesting enough to be worth surprising me with is completely beyond me." 

"You'll see," Rose said. She couldn't help herself, apparently, ducking in to press another lingering kiss to his lips. "We'll be back soon." 

"I'll be waiting," the Doctor sighed. "But if I have to deal with carolers while you're gone..."

"We'll put up a sign," John assured him with an amused smirk. He offered Rose his arm. "Sixty-three minutes."

"I'll be counting."

The Doctor watched them go with a sigh, and stood to wander about the TARDIS, pausing to check Rose’s usual hiding places for potential Christmas gifts (he still hadn’t found all of John’s, though he suspected if he looked for some of his old hidey-holes he’d probably be able to find a thing or two). 

All he found was a note admonishing him for peeking, which he very deliberately left untouched though he doubted Rose would be fooled, and made his way empty-handed to the console room.

The last time he’d bothered to acknowledge Christmas had been one spent with Clara, he thought, judging from the nonsensical notes regarding Father Christmas he'd found about the place. He supposed it had made him morose, and Rose and John had made it clear that they were making it their mission to make their first Christmas together particularly memorable. Why that meant he had to spend the next fifty-four and a half minutes on his lonesome, he couldn't imagine. 

His brow furrowed when he felt an odd tingle about his head. 

Before he could examine it too closely, his attention was drawn to a knock on the door.


End file.
